This Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) is a merit-based, competitive, bid-selection model used by federal contracting and agreements officers to acquire demonstrations of innovative commercial items. By using CSOs, federal organizations can more quickly acquire and test commercial AI solutions.

What Is TryAI?

This Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) is a merit-based, competitive, bid-selection model used by federal contracting and agreements officers to acquire “demonstrations” of innovative commercial items. By using CSOs, federal organizations can more quickly acquire and test commercial AI solutions. For private industry, CSOs allow contracts for innovative technology to be struck more quickly and on commercial-friendly terms.

AI Focus Areas

1. Data Readiness – discoverability, transport, storage, conversion, labeling, ontologies, standards to improve data quality
2. AI Assurance – test and evaluation harnesses, methodologies, data partitioning
3. MLOPs – development environments, federated model catalogs, pre-approved code & AI packages
4. AI Ethics – tools, methods, best practices to support the operationalization of DoD’s AI Ethical Principles
5. Foundational Enablers – any process, tool methodology, environment or best practice that enables faster delivery of software and/or capability (i.e. data management, tools to streamline or accelerate acquisition and contracting workflows, DevSecOps pipelines, rapid cyber security)

TryAI Benefits

Flexibility of Proposal: General solicitation provides innovative AI companies the opportunity to respond with technical solutions to broadly defined AI areas of exploration.

Speed of Evaluation: Proposals are evaluated in a peer review process for intrinsic merit rather than being compared to other proposals.

Cost Control: CSO gives the federal government wide discretion in choosing which solution should be funded with U.S. tax dollars.

Ready to Learn More?

View TryAI Full Announcement

Helpful Links

TryAI Slick Sheet – PDF