For more than three years, an IEEE Standards Association working group has been refining a draft standard for procuring artificial intelligence and automated decision systems, IEEE 3119-2025. It is intended to help procurement teams identify and manage risks in high-risk domains. Such systems are used by government entities involved in education, health, employment, and many other public sector areas. Last year the working group partnered with a European Union agency to evaluate the draft standard’s components and to gather information about users’ needs and their views on the standard’s value.
At the time, the standard included fiveprocesses to help users develop their solicitations and to identify, mitigate, and monitor harms commonly associated with high-risk AI systems.
Those processes were problem definition, vendor evaluation, solution evaluation, contract negotiation, and contract monitoring.
The EU agency’s feedback led the working group to reconsider the processes and the sequence of several activities. The final draft now includes an additional process: solicitation preparation, which comes right after the problem definition process. The working group believes the added process addresses the challenges organizations experience with preparing AI-specific solicitations, such as the need to add transparent and robust data requirements and to incorporate questions regarding the maturity of vendor AI governance.
The EU agency also emphasized that it’s essential to include solicitation preparation, which gives procurement teams additional opportunities to adapt their solicitations with technical requirements and questions regarding responsible AI system choices. Leaving space for adjustments is especially relevant when acquisitions of AI are occurring within emerging and changing regulatory environments.
Gisele Waters
IEEE 3119’s place in the standards ecosystem
Currently there are several internationally accepted standards for AI management, AI ethics, and general software acquisition. Those from the IEEE Standards Association and the International Organization for Standardization target AI design, use, and life-cycle management.
Until now, there has been no internationally accepted, consensus-based standard that focuses on the procurement of AI tools and offers operationalguidance for responsibly purchasing high-risk AI systems that serve the public interest.
The IEEE 3119 standard addresses that gap. Unlike the AI management standard ISO 42001 and other certifications related to generic AI oversight and risk governance, IEEE’s new standard offers a risk-based, operationalapproach to help government agencies adapt traditional procurement practices.
Governments have an important role to play in the responsible deployment of AI. However, market dynamics and unequal AI expertise between industry and government can be barriers that discourage success.
One of the standard’s core goals is to better inform procurement leaders about what…
Read full article: IEEE standard offers 6 steps for AI system procurement
The post “IEEE standard offers 6 steps for AI system procurement” by Gisele Waters was published on 05/15/2025 by spectrum.ieee.org