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In the new working paper “Competition implications of artificial intelligence in public procurement”, I explore how competition can be affected by emerging trends in the procurement of AI and in the deployment of AI to manage public procurement processes.
The paper is intended for a Research Agenda for Competition Law and has an exploratory approach to identifying areas for future research in relation to the competition implications of the current rollout of AI in procurement (see this OECD report for a recent snapshot) and in the quickly accelerating procurement of AI for use across the public sector (see this other OECD report for an overview).
Full abstract below. Comments most welcome!
Artificial intelligence (AI) has two primary interactions with public procurement. First, procurement is the gateway for the still largely unregulated process of public sector AI adoption. Second, AI is being deployed to ‘streamline’ procurement itself. This contribution explores the competition implications of these interactions between AI and procurement, as well as the knock-on effects that AI-supported procurement can have on upstream markets. In particular, it considers competition implications of new procurement approaches concerning: the setting of technical and governance requirements; reliance on third party capabilities; unregulated AI audit and assurance mechanisms; unregulated practices such as the free embedding of AI solutions into contracted cloud or software solutions (or ‘AI creep’); as well as the risks of new forms of data bias, organisational conflicts of interest and centralisation forces arising from the deployment of AI solutions in procurement management (including ‘AI agents’). The contribution highlights emerging issues and trends, and identifies areas for future research.