The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has developed a new online tool designed to simplify the government procurement process for federal professionals tasked with ensuring optimal value for taxpayers.

Developed in partnership with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Procurement Co-Pilot enhances the White House Better Contracting Initiative.

It achieves this by enhancing agency access to trustworthy governmentwide purchasing data and streamlining the elimination of redundant data, tools, and efforts.

The tool leverages OMB’s innovative acquisition data strategy– Hi-Def, and aids acquisition professionals in swiftly accessing comprehensive procurement data.

This tool enables them to analyze prices paid for products, discover government-affiliated vendors of various sizes and categories, and select optimal contracts aligned with their agency’s mission requirements.

“The Procurement Co-Pilot increases visibility into the data provided by our partners, which helps federal agencies make better decisions about how they spend taxpayer money. A significant data source for the Procurement Co-Pilot is GSA’s Transactional Data Reporting Program, which collects data about prices paid from thousands of Multiple Award Schedule contracts,” GSA said in a blog post.

Earlier this year, GSA published a resource guide for federal purchasers seeking generative artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and associated computing infrastructure..

“Generative AI technology will continue to evolve and we know that this resource guide should continue to evolve with it. Contracting officers will play a critical role by working closely with program and IT staff to find, source, acquire and make secure the right generative AI solutions for agencies’ needs,” Laura Stanton, Assistant Commissioner in the GSA’s Office of Information Technology Category, said.