APO AI Digital Assistant
Tender Overview
About this tender
This Tender is invited by the Issuer. Overview The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), through the Australian Passport Office (APO), is seeking quotations for the provision of managed hosting, maintenance, operational support and continuous improvement services for the APO's AI-enabled Digital Assistant (the 'Digital Assistant'). About The Digital Assistant is an existing, piloted public-facing service, embedded on www.passports.gov.au, and uses a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture to provide conversational access to publicly available passport information. Scope The scope includes: Provision of managed hosting services for the Digital Aassistant Provision of maintenance services for the Digital Assistant Provision of operational support services for the Digital Assistant Provision of continuous improvement services for the Digital Assistant Establishment of the hosting and deployment environment for the Digital Assistant, where required Implementation and configuration of the solution This procurement does not seek proposals for new functional development.
How to respond to this tender
A strong tender response is clear, compliant, and backed by evidence. These steps apply to most Australian and New Zealand public tenders.
Read the requirements in full
Open the official listing and download the full tender pack. Note the response schedules, evaluation criteria, mandatory conditions, and the exact closing time and lodgement method.
Confirm you are eligible and it is worth bidding
Check licences, insurances, certifications, and any conformance requirements before you commit. A quick bid or no-bid decision saves days of wasted effort on a tender you cannot win.
Answer every criterion with evidence
Respond to each evaluation criterion directly and back your claims with concrete examples, referees, and past performance. Address the buyer’s stated need, not a generic capability statement.
Lodge early through the official portal
Submit through the source portal well before the deadline. Late or incorrectly lodged bids are almost always rejected, so leave time for uploads, portal errors, and last-minute questions.
