Buyers are starting to ask whether AI helped write your bid. This guide sets out what the Procurement Policy Note actually says, what belongs to general procurement law rather than to the PPN, how to answer when you do use a controlled AI, and a disclosure paragraph you can adapt.
PPN 02/24 is a UK Procurement Policy Note on the use of artificial intelligence in commercial activity, published for central government and the wider public sector. It addresses how contracting authorities may ask suppliers to disclose AI use in bid preparation and how they should handle those answers.
Most confusion about AI disclosure comes from mixing what the PPN says with what general procurement law already required. They lead to different risks.
Contracting authorities may ask suppliers to disclose their use of AI in preparing a bid. Where such questions are used, they are framed as optional and are not intended to be scored: the answer should not by itself win or lose marks. Their purpose is proportionate, enhanced due diligence on the content submitted.
Independently of any AI question, a bid whose content is found to be inaccurate, at clarification, in evaluation or after award, exposes the supplier to rejection and to the consequences of misrepresentation. This is the real risk, and it exists whether or not AI was used.
A closed question. Answer it accurately, and add a short explanation of the controls, a bare tick invites the evaluator to imagine the worst.
Be specific and bounded: retrieval and drafting from your own approved documents, with human review. Avoid describing capabilities you cannot evidence.
This is the question that separates suppliers. Sources cited to page and version, a confidence score per answer, named human approval, and an audit trail available on request.
This is the substance of the matter. The supplier remains fully responsible for the content regardless of the tools used, which is why named sign-off matters more than the disclosure itself.
The content does not come from the model: it comes from your own documents, cited with page and version. Nothing extrapolated.
Human review is directed at the weak points, which is more credible than a claim of perfection.
A person read, accepted and put their name to it. Responsibility is not delegated to a tool.
If the buyer asks to see it, you show the question, sources, version, score, approver and date. That closes the discussion.
Adapt it to your organisation. It is written to be true for a controlled use: do not reuse it if you cannot produce the audit trail it describes.
“This response has been prepared with the assistance of a specialised artificial intelligence system, used in a controlled environment and on our own internal documents only.
Every statement in our response is supported by a document from our repository, identified by title, version and page. No information has been generated outside those sources. Each answer was subject to an automated conformity check against its source, and then approved by a named member of our organisation, whose name and approval date are recorded.
The information provided binds our organisation exactly as it would had it been written entirely by hand. We are able to produce, on request and for any answer of your choosing, the source cited, its version at the date of submission, and the identity of the approver.
No information relating to this procurement has been transmitted to a third-party service: processing took place within our private environment, under [jurisdiction] law.”
“Response prepared with the assistance of a specialised AI system, using our own internal documents only, with every answer sourced and approved by a named individual. Full audit trail available on request.”
Where the question is closed (“Has AI been used? Yes / No”), answer yes and attach the short version as a comment. A ticked box with no explanation leaves the evaluator to imagine the process.
Where a buyer prohibits AI outright, read the wording precisely: a prohibition on automatically generated content is not a prohibition on tooling internal document retrieval. If the wording is ambiguous, a written clarification question is the only safe route.
Frequently asked
Under PPN 02/24 they are framed as optional and not intended to be scored: the disclosure itself should not win or lose marks. What can cost you the contract is inaccurate content, which falls under general procurement law.
It is not required, and it is often a good idea. A voluntary disclosure accompanied by evidence of control distinguishes you from bids nobody can account for.
What harms your chances is inaccurate content or a disclosure contradicted by the facts. A controlled, documented use with named sign-off is easier to defend than an undisclosed one.
You produce, for the answer they name: the source cited, its version at submission, the score, the approver and the timestamp. That is what the platform retains by construction.
The note is aimed at central government and its wider public sector audience, but the wording is being copied by other buyers, including private procurement teams. Treat the pattern as general.
No. This page is a practical reading of public documents, dated 25 July 2026, and is updated as guidance evolves. For a specific procurement, take your own advice and ask the authority a clarification question.
Bring a submission you have already made. We show, on your documents, what the evidence pack a buyer can ask for actually looks like.