How to Forecast VA AI Work Before the RFP Drops

Why does forecasting matter more than bid-chasing?

Because of how the VA Rule of Two works. Under 38 U.S.C. § 8127(d), a VA contracting officer must set a requirement aside for SDVOSBs when market research shows a reasonable expectation that two or more certified SDVOSBs will bid at fair and reasonable prices. That determination happens during market research — months before the solicitation is written. So the leverage point isn’t the bid; it’s the moment the CO is still deciding whether the work will be an SDVOSB set-aside at all. Firms that show up then — at the forecast, the sources-sought, the RFI — get to influence that decision. Firms that wait for the RFP just inherit whatever the CO already decided. For a brand-new firm with no pipeline, that upstream window is the only place the odds are genuinely winnable.

Source 1: The VA Forecast of Contracting Opportunities

The VA’s forecast is your primary leading indicator — it’s where planned procurements appear 12 to 18 months before solicitation. One wrinkle to know in 2026: it’s mid-transition. Two tools coexist. The legacy VA-hosted forecast still serves data at vendorportal.ecms.va.gov, while the brand-name “VA Forecast of Contracting Opportunities” link on VA OSDBU’s VetBiz page now points to the governmentwide tool on the GSA Acquisition Gateway (acquisitiongateway.gov/forecast). The VA Technology Acquisition Center — which awards T4NG2, SPRUCE, and most enterprise AI work — has fully migrated to the Acquisition Gateway; some non-TAC components still post to the legacy site; and VetBiz shows a “coming soon” banner with no announced cutover date. Practical answer: search both.

What’s in each listing matters. Per VA Handbook 0507 (signed December 1, 2025), forecast entries must be posted by the 5th of each month, ideally 12–18 months ahead of solicitation, with 16 required fields — including anticipated set-aside type (the field that tells you whether SDVOSB Rule-of-Two is on the table) and the existing contract number (your recompete pointer). Filter by Department of Veterans Affairs, NAICS 541512 (plus 541511, 541519, 541611), and watch especially for set-aside marked “TBD” — those are your highest-leverage targets, because the CO hasn’t committed the requirement yet, and a timely capability statement plus a sources-sought response can move it into the SDVOSB column.

Source 2: The AI use-case inventory and the budget

The VA’s AI use-case inventory is a demand map. The 2025 inventory, released January 2026, lists 367 individual use cases (up from 227 in 2024), of which 138 are active and 215 are high-impact — more than any other federal agency. Each row names the sponsoring administration and the lifecycle stage; entries marked “Acquisition or development” or “Implementation and assessment” are typically 6–18 months from a procurement action, and high-impact use cases trigger M-25-21 obligations that the VA will need outside help to meet. Download the Excel monthly and diff it — lifecycle transitions are buy signals.

Pair that with the money. The VA’s FY27 IT request is about $6.46 billion, with a dedicated “Decision Intelligence and Automation” line of roughly $47.8 million (up ~11%), and the strategy anchors AI investment to EHRM, suicide prevention, and claims automation. The operational case the VA keeps making for more automation: VBA processed a record 3 million claims in FY25 and drove the backlog below 90,000 by March 2026. That’s the evidence base your future bids will be funded against.

Source 3: SAM.gov Sources Sought and RFI monitoring

Sources Sought notices and RFIs sit upstream of solicitations — they are the contracting officer’s Rule-of-Two market research. Responding well to one is the single highest-leverage BD action a new SDVOSB can take at the VA. Set up three free saved searches with email alerts: NAICS + SDVOSB set-aside; NAICS + TBD/none (to catch pre-decision postings); and VA + keywords (“automation,” “RAG,” “document classification,” “predictive analytics,” “machine learning”). Add PSC codes DA01 and DA10 alongside the NAICS filters to catch listings classified by service.

A strong response is one to three pages, and most firms blow it by treating it as a proposal. It isn’t — it’s market-research data. Lead with your SDVOSB status, SBA VetCert, active SAM registration, UEI, CAGE, and NAICS; map your relevant past performance (even commercial) to the listed scope paragraph by paragraph; state plainly that you’re a certified SDVOSB able to perform as prime under the limitations-on-subcontracting rule and recommend the requirement be set aside under 38 U.S.C. § 8127(d); and copy the small business specialist along with the named CO. Two capable SDVOSB responses is often all the evidence a CO needs to set the resulting RFP aside — and your response is half of that. (The legal mechanism is the Veterans First / Rule of Two spoke; when only one capable SDVOSB exists, it collapses into a $5M sole-source.)

Source 4: USAspending and recompete forecasting

Every expiring contract is a forecastable future opportunity. On USAspending.gov, search VA contracts in your NAICS over the last five years and sort by period-of-performance end date — anything ending in the next 12 to 24 months is a recompete you can prepare for now. For each, capture the incumbent, total value, contracting office, set-aside type, and whether all option years were exercised; unexercised options signal incumbent dissatisfaction and are your highest-probability targets. Cross-reference against the forecast and the AI inventory: a recompete whose scope maps to an active inventory entry is nearly certain to expand. Recompetes are also where challengers actually win — one FPDS analysis puts the challenger win rate around 38% on recompetes versus about 12% on net-new competitive solicitations, with set-aside recompetes tilting further toward challengers (directional, not an official statistic). The incumbents and primes you surface here double as your teaming and JV target list.

Source 5: The policy reports that signal what’s coming

Every major VA AI procurement has a paper trail months ahead. OMB memos drive demand — M-25-21 (April 2025) mandates AI governance and minimum practices for high-impact AI; M-25-22 applies AI-acquisition rules to solicitations issued on or after September 30, 2025; and M-26-04 (December 2025) adds requirements for large-language-model procurements. GAO reports flag the gaps the VA will be pushed to fix — the September 2025 report on VA’s AI practices, the 2026 report on AI-acquisition lessons learned, and the EHRM deployment report all point at where dollars will move. And VA OIG findings are the most literal signal of all: when the OIG reported that 27% of reviewed claims in VBA’s automation project contained inaccurate determinations, it was effectively previewing the next round of QA, human-in-the-loop, and claims-automation procurements. Read the recommendations, not just the summaries — and track House and Senate VA Committee tech-modernization hearings alongside them.

Source 6: Which paid tools — and which to skip

Be honest about cost. The four government sources above are free and do most of the work. Among paid tools, HigherGov is the best first buy at $500/year for an individual (or $2,500/year for a 10-user Standard plan) — cheap enough to justify from a single recompete win, and good for competitor mapping and teaming-partner discovery. Skip GovWin IQ until you’re routinely bidding $5M+ contracts; at roughly $29,000/year average with a long payback horizon, it’s built for firms chasing far larger work than a solo founder should be targeting.

What’s the actual weekly routine?

Block 90 minutes every Monday.

1. Triage SAM.gov alerts

   Draft a response to any well-fitting Sources Sought within 72 hours.

2. Sweep the VA forecast

   Add new listings in your NAICS to a simple tracker.

3. Run the recompete check

   USAspending for contracts expiring in 12–24 months.

4. Email the POC

   Capability statement attached, plus the small business specialist on each new high-priority forecast listing.

Then monthly (about two hours): diff the AI inventory, sweep GAO/OIG/OMB for the prior month, skim the latest budget line shifts, and re-rank your pipeline. Quarterly: refresh the capability statement and reassess whether the pipeline justifies a paid tool. Do that for twelve weeks and you’ll have a real pipeline — built for $0.

Working with Truvisory

Truvisory is a brand-new SBA-verified SDVOSB, founded by a combat veteran — and we run this exact workflow ourselves, because we’re starting from zero too. We have no established VA pipeline yet, and nothing here is a past-performance claim; it’s the method.

If you’re a fellow SDVOSB starting out, the four free sources and a 90-minute Monday are the whole on-ramp. When a forecasted opportunity surfaces, the rest of the playbook takes over: the capability statement you’ll send, the Veterans First leverage you’ll invoke, the teaming and vehicle paths you’ll use, and the compliance posture a CO will ask about. Start at the pillar for the full map. Get in touch if you want a second set of eyes on your pipeline.