The Department of Defense, specifically the Army, is seeking innovative software solutions through the SBIR program to enhance the evaluation and source selection processes for contract proposals. The objective is to develop a comprehensive software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that automates and standardizes these processes, addressing challenges such as evaluator inconsistency and inefficiencies that can lead to procurement delays and protests. This initiative is crucial for accelerating the acquisition process and improving contract outcomes, with a funding opportunity of up to $2 million for Direct to Phase II proposals, which must be submitted by July 9, 2025. Interested parties should refer to the xTechIgnite competition for eligibility details and can find more information at the provided source link.

## Description

This solution should address principal challenges experienced during the evaluation and source selection processes including length of time required to conduct evaluations; varying levels of experience possessed by evaluators; inconsistent treatment of Offerors by evaluators; and deviation from solicitation instructions and evaluation criteria, potentially leading to protest. This solution is critical to accelerate the overall acquisition process, field capabilities more rapidly to the Soldier, and significantly improve contract outcomes including fewer successful protests.&nbsp;The Army's pursuit of a software solution to automate, standardize, and accelerate the evaluation and source selection processes represents a novel and innovative approach to a challenge traditionally addressed using general-purpose capabilities such as Microsoft Word and Excel or outmoded procurement systems. Additionally, the current processes are heavily error-prone due to individual evaluator inexperience, human mistakes, and evaluator fatigue.&nbsp;The envisioned solution seeks to transform this process by harnessing of the power of AI and related private sector innovations to perform many functions traditionally performed manually by human staff. Many activities in the areas of review, analysis, and quality assurance can be performed at scale by AI and related commercial technologies. Reviewing and analyzing large amounts of evaluation data for inconsistencies, traditionally performed by humans over many weeks, can now be performed at scale through AI tools that perform these functions in just seconds.&nbsp;IMPORTANT: A prize competition, xTechIgnite, will be used to identify small business concerns that meet the criteria for award for this topic. Winners selected from the xTechIgnite prize competition will be the only firms eligible to submit a SBIR proposal under this topic. All other proposals will not be evaluated. See the full xTechIgnite competition details here:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.xtech.army.mil/competition/xtechignite/">https://www.xtech.army.mil/competition/xtechignite/</a>.

## Objective

Provide a comprehensive software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that automates and standardizes the evaluation and source selection processes while tailoring the user experience to the Army&rsquo;s unique conditions/constraints.

## Phase I

This topic is accepting Direct to Phase II proposals for a cost up to $2,000,000 for an 18-month period of performance.Proposers interested in submitting a DP2 proposal must provide documentation to substantiate that the scientific and technical merit and feasibility equivalent to a Phase I project has been met. Documentation can include data, reports, specific measurements, success criteria of a prototype, etc.

## Phase II

The successful small business should be prepared to rapidly deliver, due to the urgent need for this capability, an initial focused Minimum Viable Product (MVP) thirty (30) calendar days following D2P2 award to demonstrate the maturity and feasibility of their concept. Subsequent to this initial MVP, a series of additional related MVPs in response to additional features requirements will be built to constitute an initial release. During this major research and development effort, the successful small business should demonstrate expert level knowledge of Army acquisition processes, standards, and practices in building a well-defined prototype software product. The desired result at the end of the Phase 2 effort is well-defined prototype of an AI-enabled source selection software solution which automates and streamlines the source selection process from issuance of a solicitation through contract award.

## Phase III: Dual Use Applications

Currently available private sector solutions applicable to this challenge are limited due to the unique nature of the Federal Government's budget and appropriations processes. Commercially available Acquisition requirements intake and portfolio management solutions such as Plainview, Smartsheet, Microsoft Project, Zoho Projects, and Monday.com are not tailored to the Federal process or regulation, and do not leverage the power of an AI-enabled Acquisition requirements intake and portfolio management system and thereby are unsuitable for this challenge. A new AI-enabled solution that is tailored to Federal Acquisition processes and regulations is needed. The framework for developing an AI-enabled portfolio management tool that is compliant with stringent federal regulations could be applicable to other highly regulated industries such as Finance and Healthcare.&emsp;

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