Artificial intelligence allowed in procurement

The use of artificial intelligence in the performance of a service contract permitted. Systems such as Open Ai and Chat Gpt can legitimately be part of a company's bid to be awarded a public contract. So says the groundbreaking ruling of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court (no. 4546/2025) that, for the first time, focuses on the issue of the use of artificial intelligence systems in public procurement. Recalling how they are reliable and, by now, commonly used in various fields. And, therefore, they can be accepted by tender selection commissions.

The appeal that led to the Lazio Regional Administrative Court's decision concerns the awarding of a lot in a tender called by Consip for the conclusion of a framework agreement for cleaning and sanitation services for the National Health Service bodies. The third-placed company in the ranking list challenged the award, citing a number of reasons, including one strictly related to the use of artificial intelligence systems.

In the calculation of the score achieved by the winning company, a result, considered by the applicant to be too high for some elements, had been assigned - the decision states - "because of the intelligences it declared it would use ('Chat Gpt-4 and Open Ai')".

In essence, in the management of the service, the winner planned to make use of Open Ai and Chat Gpt for certain functions. An impossible use, according to the appeal, since the appellant reports that hehad queried Chat Gpt and that this "responded in a manner incompatible with the use that the winner intended to make of this tool". For this reason, then, the appeal censures the fact that the Pa had 'positively accepted, without any in-depth investigation, the usability of the Ia in the context of the service at issue'.

The court rejected this approach. And it explains how "there is not to be found" in this case "any aspect of obvious criticality and/or unreliability of such an aid tool, which is, moreover, now in common and widespread use, nor consequently any reason that should have led" the jury to make different assessments. The use of artificial intelligence, in short, is perfectly permissible in a service contract.