Learning Digital Procurement’s Hard Lessons Before Jumping In at the AI Deep End

By: Albert Sanchez Graells (How to Crack a Nut)

Shortly after the UK Government unveiled its AI Opportunities Action Plan, the National Audit Office (NAO) published its report, Government’s approach to technology suppliers: addressing the challenges (the NAO digital procurement report). In this blog post, author Albert Sanchez Graells examines both documents together to reveal the complexities and risks involved in accelerating public sector AI adoption, a key goal for the UK Government.

More broadly, Sanchez Graell writes, this highlights the challenges most jurisdictions face in adapting procurement frameworks to the digital landscape and ‘data-first’ strategies. Ensuring sustained investment in procurement skills and systems is both essential and costly, with significant ripple effects—both positive and negative—on public sector operations (a topic the author is currently exploring with Nathan Davies).

In essence, the AI Opportunities Action Plan aims to drive AI adoption across the economy, with procurement playing a central role. As noted in the author’s initial reaction to the plan, one of its key shortcomings is the lack of concrete measures to address the severe digital skills gap in the public sector. The extent to which this gap is narrowed will ultimately determine the feasibility of AI procurement in areas like contract design, performance management, and other vital implementation tasks…

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