Attachment 4 - QA Responses.pdf

# Question Paragraph Reference Government Answer

Section 1.1 requires monitoring of thousands of domestic and international media outlets. Will the government's evaluation consider the total number of licensed sources and the depth of the contractor's direct licensing relationships with publishers and social platforms, as opposed to reliance on web crawling or scraping? Direct licensing relationships have significant implications for data reliability, legal compliance, and content quality/volume. 1.1 Statement of Work Yes

What are the expectations regarding access to paywalled content and associated licensing? 1.1 Statement of Work

The government expects access to the full-text article as part of the platform license for major media and defense associated outlets at a minimum

Are there any platform restrictions or compliance considerations for monitoring specific social media platforms? 2.1 Statement of Work

The platform should limit the users abilities when it comes to sphere of influence individual identification of U.S. based accounts.

Section 3.2 references the use of artificial intelligence. In order to have the most up-to-date solution, does the government also require conversational AI interfaces that allow users to query raw data in natural language including AI-generated narrative summaries of media coverage, and AI-assisted report drafting? 3.2 Statement of Work Yes

Is the ability for users to directly interact with underlying datasets via conversational AI is a required capability? 3.2 Statement of Work Highly desired not required

FA701426R0020 - Media and Social Media Analysis Support Tool

The SOW requires full-text access to underlying content via API in a structured, machine-readable format. Third-party news, broadcast, and social media content is protected by copyright law and owned by the originating publishers and platforms.

No contractor can legally transfer ownership or provide unrestricted full-text export of third-party content. Given that, can the government expand on what its intention here?

7.5 & 7.13 - Full-Text API Export Statement of Work Verbaige removed

What is the anticipated volume of data that the government will export via the API on a monthly basis? 7.5 & 7.13 - API Export Statement of Work Unable to provide

The SOW states the Government shall have unlimited rights to all deliverables, including intellectual property. This goes against industry practices. A blanket IP rights claim over third-party content would conflict with copyright law and platform terms of service that bind all vendors in this market equally and will hamper competition. The government can achieve this goal without requiring industry to provide rights to data that it does not own. 7.8 Statement of Work 7.8 Removed

Can the Government provide additional details on required integrations and any hosting/security requirements (e.g., FedRAMP or specific cloud environments)? 7.13 API & Integration

Offerors should describe any integration dependencies, hosting assumptions, and security requirements associated with their proposed solution. At a minimum, solutions should be capable of operating within a Government-approved environment and meeting applicable DoD cybersecurity and accreditation requirements. If cloud hosting is proposed, offerors should clearly identify the environment, required security posture, and any dependencies on third-party infrastructure or services. The Government is seeking solutions that can support secure deployment and integration with existing data workflows and enterprise services, but specific implementation details will be refined during solutioning and award execution.

How should vendors address full-text access via API where publisher restrictions may apply? 7.5 / 7.13 Data Rights

Offerors are responsible for identifying how their solution accesses, licenses, and uses full-text content. Any proposed full-text access via API must comply with applicable publisher licensing terms, copyright restrictions, and terms of service. If publisher restrictions limit direct full-text access, offerors should clearly explain their alternative approach, including the use of metadata, excerpts, links, summaries, or other authorized methods. The Government will not assume responsibility for securing publisher permissions that are required for contractor-provided solutions.

Can you clarify how the 60 concurrent users are expected to be structured (roles, locations, or organizational divisions)? 7.1–7.3 User & Access Model

Ability for concurrent access globally. Roles hierachy to administration accounts to assign personnel accounts and organizational accounts and grant permissions. Ability to limit access to searches by using roles heirachy system preferred.

The performance thresholds outlined in Section 9.1 prescribe resolution timelines, recurrence limits, and uptime requirements that differ significantly from standard commercial SaaS service level agreements used across the media monitoring and social listening industry. Many of these thresholds also do not account for issues originating with third-party platforms or Government infrastructure that are outside the contractor’s control (i.e. social media platforms going offline, etc.) Further, certain performance thresholds assume a number of factors that are not forecastable, such as successfully resolving a customer complaint within 2 business days. There is no definition for contractors to know what kind of complaint the customer may submit, and no way to contractually commit to resolving it. We believe this significantly hampers competition for this effort and goes against established industry norms. Will the Government consider removing Section 9.1 in its entirety and allowing offerors to propose their standard commercial SLA terms, which are consistent with industry practice and more accurately reflect the realities of delivering a SaaS-based solution in this market? 9.1 Statement of Work Section has been revised.

Is there a need to track LLM responses, such as how the Air Force appears across ChatGPT and other large language models? General Statement of Work Desired not required

Has SAF/PA identified any shortcomings or gaps with current/recent services? General Statement of Work These have been addressed in this SOW.

Can the Government provide the anticipated annual budget or funding range for this requirement? This will allow offerors to right-size their proposed solutions and ensure proposals are both technically compliant and fiscally aligned with Government expectations. General Statement of Work No.

The Evaluation Factors description appears incomplete. Could SAF/PA please confirm the weight of the technical and past performance volumes to price? Page 37 (a) Evaluation Factors

Ability to meet requirements is priority, price is a factor.

The pricing structure references labor categories—can the Government clarify the expected scope and applicability of labor categories for this requirement (e.g., implementation, training, support, or optional services)? N/A Labor Categories

On-boarding and on-demand training for personnel. Support building effective boolean searches, building automated report and templates, and databases.

For the past performance questionnaire, will the Government accept CPARS reports in lieu of completed questionnaires? N/A Past Performance Yes

Could you provide insight into the relative weighting of technical, past performance, and price, and whether product demonstrations will be required? N/A Evaluation Criteria

The ability of the product to meet requirements is of the highest priority but price will be a deciding factor.

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