Virtual Agent Tenders and Contracts

A virtual agent tender rarely covers a bot on its own. Most notices bundle it with something bigger: a contact centre and telephony replacement, an omnichannel customer contact platform, a website or digital front door rebuild, an IT service management toolset. That matters for searching, because the word chatbot often sits in the description of a contract titled something else entirely.

Stotles brings together virtual agent tenders and contracts from 100+ portals into one search, so you do not have to check each portal separately, and you can set alerts for new opportunities across the UK and Ireland.

If you want to search the government portals directly, Find a Tender carries higher-value contracts across the UK and Contracts Finder carries lower-value contracts in England. Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales and eTendersNI cover Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Ireland's eTenders covers Irish public bodies, and many councils, NHS bodies and housing associations publish on their own e-tendering portals such as ProContract. Virtual agents usually arrive as part of a contact centre or digital public contact platform, with councils running soft market testing before buying AI tools.

Chatbots handling enquiries must process personal data under UK data protection law, and public-facing services must meet the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018. Tenders usually set minimum insurance cover, check financial standing and ask for evidence of similar contracts at selection stage. Under the Procurement Act 2023, suppliers can be excluded for certain criminal convictions, insolvency or failure to pay tax.

Councils are among the most visible buyers. They buy small and specific, one service at a time. Police forces, housing providers and universities show up too, usually inside a larger digital contact or customer service programme rather than as a standalone bot purchase.

Read digital and customer access strategies, contact centre contract expiry dates, AI adoption plans and soft market testing notices, which show virtual agent work coming due ahead of a notice. On Stotles you can track those signals and the buyers behind them, then follow a notice from pre-tender through to award.

Virtual agent and chatbot notices carry 48000000 (Software package and information systems) and 72000000 (IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support).