HHS AI Power User Advanced Models and Features Pilot

Statement of Objectives (SOO) - HHS AI Power User Advanced Models and Features Pilot Statement of Objectives (SOO) STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES HHS AI Power User Advanced Models and Features Pilot June 26, 2026 1. Purpose The purpose of this acquisition is to obtain short-duration, firm-fixed-price pilot awards that function as inclusive, all-you-can-eat-style access bundles, within a stated usage envelope, for up to [1,000] authorized portable HHS power users per resultant award, with potential priced options to increase the authorized portable-user quantity up to 10,000. The objective is to let power users exercise advanced models, advanced features, integration paths, native apps, reporting functions, administrative controls, and security-boundary options in a forward-leaning enterprise environment before HHS finalizes its broader enterprise AI solution. The primary purpose of the advanced power-user pilot is to establish operational baselines for emerging and frontier AI capabilities to enable HHS to accurately forecast enterprise demand, define enterprise operating models, establish governance requirements, determine enterprise scalability, or develop future pricing structures. HHS also intends to mature enterprise AI governance, attribution, allocation, and consumption measurement capabilities throughout the pilot period, including support for capability-level attribution, program-level allocation, enterprise reporting, and AI Consumption Unit (ACU) normalization methodologies. The pilot shall enable the Government to baseline actual power-user usage, determine enterprise-feasible operational methodology, identify and roadmap which models and features require configuration or customization, identify levels and timing of customization, establish security and authorization logic, and formulate a common enterprise logical and operational model for AI use at HHS. HHS requires the pilot to establish a practical operating model for commercial-parity access to advanced AI models and features in a forward-leaning enterprise environment. The contractor shall support HHS in determining how new commercial model releases, advanced features, agentic capabilities, native apps, coding and data tools, APIs, and administrative controls can be made available to Government users with minimal lag relative to commercial release, while satisfying HHS security, privacy, authorization, logging, identity, data-handling, statutory AI governance, and records requirements. The contractor shall provide a FedRAMP 20x-aligned certification pathway where applicable, including Key Security Indicator mapping, machine-readable or automation-supporting evidence, persistent-validation approach, continuous monitoring evidence, significant-change logic, and agency ATO support artifacts. Where a feature or model cannot be made available to HHS at commercial parity, the contractor shall disclose the gap, cause, authorization dependency, security-boundary issue, required customization, and target availability date to close the parity gap. HHS recognizes that certain AI capabilities are sufficiently mature within the Department to support consumption- based analysis, while other emerging and frontier capabilities require operational baselining before future enterprise pricing, licensing, and acquisition structures can be determined. Accordingly, this pilot distinguishes between frontier capability baselining and established capability consumption analysis. -- 1 of 24 -- Statement of Objectives (SOO) - HHS AI Power User Advanced Models and Features Pilot Statement of Objectives (SOO) HHS's desired end state is to establish a sustainable operational model that maintains or exceeds commercial parity at enterprise scale – continually operationalizing frontier AI innovation into the enterprise, advanced models, advanced features, agentic capabilities, coding capabilities, research capabilities, scientific capabilities, APIs, administrative capabilities, and other newly released commercial capabilities become available to HHS users at or before the time they become available to commercial enterprise customers, except where a documented security, privacy, legal, authorization, compliance, or technical dependency prevents such availability. 2. Background HHS is preparing for broader enterprise acquisition of LLM and related AI capabilities, including potential multiple- award BPA and enterprise license or enterprise agreement task orders. Market research indicates that advanced LLM offerings differ materially in buying channel, security boundary, model and feature availability, release cadence, administrative controls, reporting, API and gateway compatibility, and pricing or consumption meters. The pilot is intended to generate operational evidence that cannot be obtained from paper market research alone. HHS needs to observe how power users utilize advanced AI capabilities, how those capabilities map to HHS mission workflows, what guardrails and administrative controls are necessary, what can be enabled immediately, what requires configuration or integration, and what requires additional security, privacy, records, accessibility, or authorization work before enterprise scaling. HHS recognizes that enterprise AI consumption measurement and allocation methodologies will continue to mature. The Government seeks to establish the operational data, telemetry, attribution, reporting, and governance foundations necessary to support future enterprise budgeting, allocation, chargeback, pricing, and acquisition decisions. The pilot is intended to support that maturation process without requiring HHS to prematurely adopt a final enterprise pricing model. The pilot is intended to generate operational evidence that supports future enterprise acquisition decisions, including BPA structure, enterprise licensing strategies, consumption models, governance frameworks, release- alignment approaches, interoperability requirements, and commercial-parity o…