AI-Ready or Invisible? Surviving Perplexity in Federal Contracting

AI just moved from buzzword to daily workflow inside federal agencies. GSA’s new OneGov deal with Perplexity means contracting officers will be using AI to research vendors, draft RFIs, and even summarize proposals — with your company often being “seen” by AI before a human ever looks you up.

In this episode of FedBiz’5, we break down what Perplexity actually does for the acquisition workforce, how it changes market research and evaluations, and why your SAM, DSBS, website, and capability statement now matter more than ever. You’ll learn what AI is really looking at when it builds a snapshot of your business, how the bar for written quality is shifting, and what practical steps you can take to stay visible, credible, and competitive in an AI-assisted federal marketplace.

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Transcript

Sam Fields:
Hello and welcome to FedBiz’5, your quick dive into all things government contracting. I hope you and your family had a great Thanksgiving and maybe even a little time away from your inbox. Now that we’re all easing back into work mode, it’s a good time to talk about a shift that’s going to shape how agencies evaluate you going forward.

Today we’re talking about a quiet but very big change: GSA just turned Perplexity into a government-wide tool. That means AI isn’t just something your competitors are playing with. It’s something contracting officers and program staff will be using every day.

So if you’re a small business government contractor, the real question is this: What does it mean when AI becomes part of the acquisition workflow? And more importantly, are you ready for that?

Let’s break it down.

Sam Fields:
First, a quick snapshot of what actually happened.

GSA signed a OneGov agreement for Perplexity Enterprise Pro for Government. Through the GSA Multiple Award Schedule, agencies can get access for pennies per user over an eighteen-month period.

Perplexity is designed to summarize huge amounts of information, draft documents like RFIs, memos, and emails, search across public data, and, when properly integrated, search internal agency systems like SharePoint, Outlook, and OneDrive.

In plain English, your average contracting officer can now have an AI assistant sitting on a second screen, helping them research the market, draft acquisition documents, and review proposals a lot faster. This isn’t experimental. It’s operational.

Sam Fields:
So how will agencies actually use Perplexity in real life?

Let’s start with market research.

Right now, good market research takes time. A contracting officer has to dig through SAM, DSBS, past procurements, NAICS codes, maybe Google, and some internal tools. With Perplexity, they can say something like, “Show me recent contracts for this type of work. What NAICS codes were used? What did agencies pay? And which small business categories are active in this space?”

Instead of digging through ten tabs, they get a synthesized snapshot in seconds. If your information is clean and consistent online, you’re going to show up in that snapshot. If it’s messy or outdated, you may not.

Next is drafting acquisition documents.

Perplexity can help staff spin up first drafts of RFIs, Sources Sought notices, Statements of Work, evaluation factors, internal memos, and vendor outreach emails. Humans still have to edit and approve everything. The FAR isn’t going away. But instead of staring at a blank page, an acquisition team can start with a draft and refine it. That means more documents created faster, which usually means more opportunities.

Then there’s summarizing and comparing proposals.

When responses start coming in, a team can ask Perplexity for plain-language summaries of each offeror, a breakdown of strengths and weaknesses against the evaluation criteria, and a quick look at inconsistencies across the technical, management, and pricing sections. The humans still decide, but AI gives them a head start and helps them spot patterns and red flags faster.

Finally, Perplexity helps with searching internal knowledge.

As it gets connected to internal systems, a contracting officer can ask questions like, “How did we structure this requirement last time? Which vendors have we used in the past five years? What performance issues did we document on the last contract?” That kills a lot of institutional memory loss and cuts down the time it takes to figure out what’s worked and what hasn’t.

So yes, Perplexity makes government faster and more informed. But let’s talk about what that actually means for you as a small business contractor.

Sam Fields:
There are three big impacts you need to pay attention to.

Number one: your public footprint becomes AI’s raw material.

When a contracting officer uses Perplexity to scan the market, it’s going to pull from your SAM registration, your DSBS or Small Business Search profile, your website, your public past performance data, and anything else online that ties back to your company and UEI.

If that information is outdated, incomplete, or inconsistent, the AI will give them a distorted view of who you are. It might say, “This company mainly does X,” when you stopped doing X three years ago. Or it might miss key strengths because you never put them anywhere public.

That first AI-generated snapshot becomes the first impression they get about your company. Even if they dig deeper later, that summary shapes how they see you.

So ask yourself: if Perplexity read everything about my business today, would I be proud of the summary it wrote?

Sam Fields:
Number two: the bar for written quality just went up.

Larger primes are already using AI to polish writing, tighten structure, and make complex technical material more readable. Now agencies have those same tools in-house.

That means the average RFI, RFP, and proposal is going to look cleaner and more polished. The baseline quality of written material will rise. If your responses are thin, generic, or poorly structured, they’re going to stand out, and not in a good way.

This doesn’t mean you need to sound like a robot. It means clear, direct language, logical organization, strong, concrete past performance, and answers that track closely to the evaluation criteria all become more important, because AI will notice when you’re off.

Sam Fields:
Number three: more opportunities, moving faster.

When you take a lot of manual work off someone’s plate, they can process more through the pipeline. AI is going to help acquisition teams complete market research faster, draft documents faster, turn around Q&A and amendments faster, and get to evaluations faster.

That can mean more RFIs and Sources Sought notices, more small-business set-asides, shorter response windows, and a busier pipeline overall. If you’re prepared, this is good news. If you’re used to waiting until the last minute to respond, this new reality is going to hurt.

Sam Fields:
Alright, so what can you actually do about it?

Let’s talk practical positioning in an AI-driven environment.

First, clean up the basics: NAICS, profiles, and keywords.

Make sure your registrations match who you are today, not who you were five years ago. Confirm your NAICS codes fit what you really want to sell now. Make sure your primary NAICS matches your core federal offering. Update your DSBS or Small Business Search profile with clear descriptions, relevant keywords, and performance highlights. Check that SAM and DSBS tell the same story about your company.

If a contracting officer asks Perplexity to find small businesses under a specific NAICS code that can perform a certain type of work, you want to show up in that answer and be described accurately.

Sam Fields:
Second, make your capability statement both AI-friendly and human-friendly.

Think of it as the one-page script that both a contracting officer and an AI assistant will use to describe you.

Use simple, clear structure. Call out your core capabilities, your differentiators, your past performance, and your NAICS and codes. Write in clean, straightforward language. Replace vague buzzwords with real outcomes and numbers. For example, instead of saying you improved efficiency, say you cut cycle time by thirty percent or supported one hundred fifty remote users in less than sixty days.

Make sure your capability statement aligns with what’s in SAM, DSBS, and on your website. If a contracting officer pastes your capability statement into Perplexity and says, “Summarize what this company really does and why they matter,” you want the answer to sound like your best elevator pitch, not a shrug.

Sam Fields:
Third, strengthen your website and online presence.

Perplexity will crawl and summarize public web content. If your site is vague, outdated, or thin on federal work, that’s the version of your company the AI will see.

You don’t need a flashy site. You need a clear site.

Make sure you have a Government or Public Sector page. Clearly describe your core capabilities in plain language. List your NAICS and PSC codes. Highlight your socio-economic statuses like 8(a), WOSB, HUBZone, or SDVOSB. Include a few short past performance stories with real outcomes. And make your contact information obvious and up to date.

The goal is that both a human and an AI can understand what you do and who you serve in under sixty seconds.

Sam Fields:
Fourth, use AI on your side.

You’re not just being evaluated by AI. You can use it to compete smarter.

You can use tools like Perplexity to turn dense RFPs into human-readable checklists, draft response outlines, build compliance matrices, summarize past performance blurbs for reuse, and research agencies, competitors, and teaming partners faster.

The key is this: let AI help you with structure, clarity, and speed, but you own the facts, the strategy, and the pricing. AI is the co-pilot. You’re still in the pilot seat.

Sam Fields:
Finally, increase your visibility where AI will be looking.

Remember, Perplexity and other OneGov tools are going to focus on federal data sets, public websites, past performance, and visible relationships.

You can raise your profile by responding to Sources Sought and RFIs, even when you’re not sure you’ll bid. Build relationships with small business offices and contracting officers in your niche. Share short, focused case studies or insights on LinkedIn that reinforce your expertise.

All of that becomes searchable signal. When a contracting officer later asks Perplexity which small firms are active in a particular space, you want your name to pop up as someone who’s visible, credible, and engaged.

Sam Fields:
Let’s land this.

Perplexity’s OneGov deal doesn’t change the FAR. It doesn’t erase the Rule of Two. It doesn’t eliminate socio-economic goals or set-asides.

What it does change is how you’re discovered, researched, and evaluated.

If your registrations are sloppy, your website is vague, and your capability statement is thin, AI will amplify those weaknesses. If you’re deliberate about your footprint, your messaging, and your outreach, AI can actually amplify your strengths and help you stand out as one of the best-prepared small businesses in your space.

This is not the time to panic. It’s the time to tune up.

And if you want help getting there, FedBiz Access is here for you.

For more than twenty-three years, we’ve helped small and mid-sized businesses show up stronger in the government marketplace, from registrations and certifications to capability statements, market research, and targeted outreach. We can help you tighten how you show up to buyers, and now, how you show up to their AI as well.

Thanks for listening to FedBiz’5, five minutes, countless opportunities.

If you’re ready to get your business AI-ready for government buyers, call a FedBiz Specialist at 844-628-8914 and reference code GOVCONREADY, that’s G-O-V C-O-N R-E-A-D-Y, for a discount on products or services.

Until next time, stay proactive, stay prepared, and keep winning in government contracting.