AI is reading your bids. Here’s what you can do about it (with David Timm)

David Timm is watching AI change Federal contracting, both at agencies and with contractors themselves, and he’s worried about where this will lead. The Burr & Forman lawyer specializes in bid protests, where AI has created huge problems for GAO and the Court of Federal Claims. He’s also tracked the undisclosed use of AI by the government to evaluate proposals. David and I talked about what steps contractors should take when they think AI might be reading their bids. And we discussed the strange irony that, while researchers are worried about AI will kill us all, it can’t research for a basic GAO protest.

Links

David Timm on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/timmdavid/

Burr & Forman profile https://www.burr.com/people/david-timm

Disclosure for Thee But Not for Me (Washington Technology) https://www.washingtontechnology.com/opinion/2026/07/disclosure-thee-not-me/415084

How GenAI Misuse is Changing in Procurement Litigation https://www.burr.com/government-contracting/how-genai-misuse-is-changing-in-procurement-litigation

Cal Newport: Anthropic Just Threatened to Kill Billions of People. This Is Not Okay. https://calnewport.com/anthropic-just-threatened-to-kill-billions-of-people-this-is-not-okay/

OMB Use Case Inventory https://github.com/ombegov/2025-Federal-Agency-AI-Use-Case-Inventory

AI Hallucinations Database https://www.damiencharlotin.com/hallucinations/

OMB Memo M-25-21 https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/M-25-21-Accelerating-Federal-Use-of-AI-through-Innovation-Governance-and-Public-Trust.pdf

OMB Memo M-25-22 https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/M-25-22-Driving-Efficient-Acquisition-of-Artificial-Intelligence-in-Government.pdf

1:2026cv00796/54375">Trax Int’l Corp. v. United States (COFC) https://dockets.justia.com/docket/federal-claims/cofce/1:2026cv00796/54375

Proposed GSAR Clause on Basic Safeguarding of Data Within Large Language Model Artificial Intelligence Systems https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/17/2026-12205/general-services-acquisition-regulation-acquisition-of-information-and-communication-technology

Salient CRGT, Inc., B-423640.2, .4, Jan. 5, 2026 (GAO) https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423640.2%2Cb-423640.4

Warfighter Focused Logistics, Inc., B-423546, B-423546.2, Aug. 5, 2025 (GAO) https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423546%2Cb-423546.2

Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.15304

AI Self-preferencing in Algorithmic Hiring: Empirical Evidence and Insights https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.00462

AI Agents Push Humans Out of the Loop https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.23642

Lost in the Middle https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.10276

Chapters

0:00 Introduction

0:34 The Weed Whacker Strapped to the Dog

4:06 Where the Disclosure Requirement Comes From

7:47 How We Know Agencies Are Using LLMs to Evaluate Bids

10:48 Where Is the Harm? A Race to the Bottom

13:45 Disclosure for Thee: The GSAR Clause and Prompt Injection

18:05 Best Practices: Papering the Record Before and After Award

23:26 Will Agencies Keep the LLM’s Reasoning?

25:35 What the Tribunals Are Likely to Do

27:11 Plausibility and the Lost-in-the-Middle Problem

31:19 Counting Gen AI Misuse in Procurement Litigation

34:10 Tucker v. United States and Other Fake Cases

37:20 Is GovCon a Uniquely Risky Niche?

42:20 The Donut Factory and the Risk-Importance Matrix

45:33 Recommendations for the Tribunals

49:19 De-Skilling and What Clients Actually Pay For

53:11 Where to Find David Timm

With over 20 years of Federal legal experience, Sam Le counsels small businesses through government contracting matters, including bid protests, contract compliance, small business certifications, and procurement disputes. Sam received his law degree from the University of Virginia and formerly served as SBA’s director of procurement policy. His website is www.samlelaw.com.

This video is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.