# Procurement as AI policy

> How has the US government used its buying power to shape which AI it uses and how labs behave?

Federal AI procurement went from new governance memos to $1 enterprise deals to contract terms on 'neutrality' and finally to excluding a lab over its usage limits. Together these show purchasing rules now do much of the work regulation would otherwise do.

## Stops
1. **3 Apr 2025: OMB replaces Biden-era rules with new memos on federal AI use and AI buying** (Development) Sets the baseline rules for agency AI use and AI contracts. [page](https://wheresthe.ai/d/us-omb-federal-ai-use-acquisition-memos-2025-04/) · [source](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/M-25-21-Accelerating-Federal-Use-of-AI-through-Innovation-Governance-and-Public-Trust.pdf)
2. **23 Jul 2025: White House publishes America's AI Action Plan and three executive orders** (Development) Calls for frontier-model access across agencies and launches the 'Woke AI' order. [page](https://wheresthe.ai/d/us-ai-action-plan-2025-07/) · [source](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf)
3. **6 Aug 2025: OpenAI, Anthropic and Google offer frontier AI to US agencies for about $1 via GSA** (Development) Labs compete to supply agencies at near-zero prices. [page](https://wheresthe.ai/d/us-gsa-onegov-frontier-ai-deals-2025-08/) · [source](https://openai.com/index/providing-chatgpt-to-the-entire-us-federal-workforce/)
4. **11 Dec 2025: OMB memo M-26-04 makes 'unbiased AI' terms mandatory in federal LLM contracts** (Development) Neutrality clauses and model disclosures become contract conditions. [page](https://wheresthe.ai/d/us-omb-m-26-04-unbiased-ai-procurement-2025-12/) · [source](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/M-26-04-Increasing-Public-Trust-in-Artificial-Intelligence-Through-Unbiased-AI-Principles-1.pdf)
5. **27 Feb 2026: Pentagon labels Anthropic a supply-chain risk after it refuses to drop two limits** (Development) A dispute over usage limits leads to a government-wide ban and a supply-chain designation. [page](https://wheresthe.ai/d/us-dow-anthropic-supply-chain-risk-2026-02/) · [source](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/27/pentagon-moves-to-designate-anthropic-as-a-supply-chain-risk/)
6. **25 Sep 2026: Appeals court upholds Pentagon's supply-chain-risk label on Anthropic** (Development) An appeals court accepts that vendor guardrails can justify exclusion. [page](https://wheresthe.ai/d/us-dc-circuit-anthropic-designation-ruling-2026-09/) · [source](https://www.nextgov.com/acquisition/2026/09/anthropic-lawsuit-supply-chain-risk/416255/)
7. **United States (federal)** (Country) See the wider US rule set these procurement moves sit within. [page](https://wheresthe.ai/j/us/)

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Canonical page: https://wheresthe.ai/line/procurement-as-ai-policy-us/ · A Line of Thought from wheresthe.ai