TFSC AI Modernization_RFI_Market Research Notice_2026.docx

TFSC AI Modernization Initiative | RFI / Market Research Notice

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)

/ MARKET RESEARCH NOTICE

TFSC AI Modernization Initiative Air Force Personnel Center (AFPC) Draft Planning Document for Industry Engagement and Acquisition Planning

IMPORTANT NOTICE. This document is provided solely for market research and acquisition planning purposes. It is not a solicitation, request for proposal, request for quotation, or commitment by the Government to procure any supplies or services. Responses are voluntary and will be used only to inform requirement development, acquisition planning, and any future pre-solicitation documentation.

Release and distribution of this package should be coordinated with the cognizant contracting office prior to external dissemination.

1. Notice to Industry This Request for Information (RFI) is issued solely for market research and acquisition planning purposes.

This notice is not a solicitation, not a Request for Proposal (RFP), not a Request for Quotation (RFQ), and not a commitment by the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for information received in response to this notice.

The Government seeks information from industry to better understand commercially available capabilities, implementation considerations, security and compliance approaches, integration patterns, sustainment models, and rough-order-of-magnitude planning factors relevant to the modernization of customer service operations supporting the Total Force Service Center (TFSC).

Responses to this RFI are for informational and planning purposes only. A response to this notice will not be considered an offer and will not be evaluated for contract award. The Government will not pay respondents for any information submitted or for any costs incurred in preparing a response. Any information submitted may be used by the Government in developing or refining requirements, acquisition strategy, and any future pre-solicitation or solicitation documentation.

Participation in this RFI is voluntary. The Government reserves the right to use or not use any information provided and is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of responses, provide feedback to respondents, or release the results of this market research effort.

2. Background The Air Force Personnel Center (AFPC), located at Joint Base San Antonio–Randolph, Texas, provides personnel support and human resource services affecting a large Total Force population worldwide. One of AFPC’s critical service organizations is the Total Force Service Center (TFSC), which provides customer support across a range of personnel, benefits, and human resource-related inquiries for military members, civilians, retirees, veterans, and eligible family members.

AFPC is exploring options to modernize TFSC customer service capabilities through the use of advanced automation and artificial intelligence-enabled solutions. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, intelligent virtual agents, conversational AI, voice and chat automation, knowledge-based assistance, workflow automation, agent-assist capabilities, analytics, secure integration with enterprise systems, and scalable contact center operations suitable for government environments.

The Government is conducting market research to better understand existing industry capabilities, deployment models, security posture, implementation approaches, and associated risks or dependencies relevant to a potential future requirement.

3. Purpose The purpose of this initiative is to refine and validate operational and technical requirements while assessing commercially available and emerging solution capabilities. It also aims to facilitate an understanding of hosting, integration, security, and compliance considerations. Furthermore, the objective is to identify implementation dependencies, risks, and best practices to inform the acquisition strategy and potential contract structure, and to develop a more accurate understanding of pricing and scaling considerations.

4. Scope of Interest

• Conversational AI for voice and digital channels.

• Natural language understanding and intent recognition.

• Intelligent virtual agents and chatbots.

• Voice automation and IVR modernization.

• Human-agent escalation and assisted service.

• Ticketing and workflow automation.

• Knowledge retrieval and response generation.

• Analytics, reporting, and performance monitoring.

• Integration with case management, CRM, telephony, and enterprise systems.

• Secure deployment in government or DAF-relevant environments.

• Scalability to support enterprise customer service operations.

5. Requested Information from Industry Interested vendors are requested to provide written responses to the questionnaire in Attachment A and, where applicable, comments on the draft requirements contained in Attachment B.

Respondents are encouraged to describe currently available capabilities, clearly identify any functionality that remains on a future product roadmap, and distinguish between native product capabilities and partner-delivered or integrator-delivered services. Respondents should also identify assumptions, dependencies, implementation prerequisites, and any material limitations that may affect cost, schedule, security posture, or operational feasibility.

Where appropriate, respondents are encouraged to recommend clarifications, alternative approaches, or tradeoffs the Government should consider before finalizing operational or technical requirements.

6. Response Instructions Interested vendors should submit a written response containing, at a minimum, the items listed below. Responses should be clear, concise, and tailored to the subject matter of this RFI. Proprietary or competition-sensitive information should be clearly marked.

• Company name.

• Primary point of contact.

• Email address and telephone number.

• CAGE code and DUNS number.

• Completed questionnaire responses.

• Comments on the draft requirements list / compliance matrix.

• Optional supporting materials, such as capability briefs, product sheets, architecture overviews, or relevant case studies.

Suggested formatting and administrative information:

· Responses should be submitted electronically via email to the points of contact listed below no later than the response due date.

· Primary POC: Shiri Avnet, shiri.avnet.1@us.af.mil

· Alternate POC: Corey Collins, corey.collins.12@us.af.mil

· Please format your response in Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF and limit it to 20 pages.

· The subject line of the email should read: "Response to RFI-FA701426-TFSC - [Your Company Name]".

7. Important Disclaimer This RFI is issued for market research only. The Government is not requesting proposals, quotations, or bids at this time. No contract will be awarded as a result of this notice. The Government may use information received in response to this notice to support planning, requirement development, acquisition strategy development, and any future acquisition documentation.

If a future solicitation is issued, it will be announced through the appropriate contracting channels. External distribution of this market research package should be coordinated with the cognizant contracting office to ensure fair and consistent dissemination practices.

8. Attachments This package includes the following attachments:

• Attachment A – Market Research Questionnaire

• Attachment B – Draft Vendor Requirements / Compliance Matrix

ATTACHMENT A

Market Research Questionnaire TFSC AI Modernization Initiative Instructions to Respondents. Please provide concise, narrative responses. Identify which capabilities are available today, which are planned, and any assumptions, limitations, or dependencies that the Government should consider.

I. General Vendor Information

II. AI and Natural Language Processing Capabilities

10. Please describe your voice capabilities, including IVR modernization, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, call routing, agent escalation, and real-time transcription, where applicable.

11. Please describe any agent-assist features, such as recommended responses, knowledge suggestions, summarization, disposition support, or next-best-action capabilities.

12. Please explain how your solution addresses hallucination risk, answer grounding, confidence scoring, human review, and escalation for low-confidence responses.

III. Ticketing, Workflow, and Integration

13. How does your solution integrate with service management, case management, CRM, and ticketing systems for automated case creation, update, routing, and closure?

14. What data elements can be captured and populated automatically during ticket or case creation?

15. Can workflows, routing rules, data fields, business rules, and escalation paths be configured or customized to align with customer-specific needs?

16. Please identify any pre-built integrations or commonly supported interfaces with CRM, case management, telephony, identity, knowledge management, or workflow platforms.

17. Please describe your API, event, webhook, middleware, or integration architecture, including common approaches for connecting to enterprise systems.

18. Please describe how your solution integrates with telephony or contact center platforms, including voice routing, handoff to live agents, and screen-pop or context transfer capabilities.

IV. Security, Compliance, and Data Handling

19. Please describe your security architecture and the security controls relevant to government use cases.

20. Please describe your solution’s ability to support Department of War Impact Level 4 (IL4) and/or Impact Level 5 (IL5) environments, including current status, limitations, or planned path.

21. Is your solution currently authorized, assessed, or aligned for use in federal or Department of the Air Force environments? Please provide details regarding FedRAMP, DoW SRG, DISA, agency ATOs, or similar certifications or authorizations, as applicable.

22. Please describe whether your proposed solution and all resulting deliverables can be deployed, operated, and sustained on an Air Force-approved platform or hosting environment. In your response, identify any external dependencies, third-party hosting requirements, or architectural limitations that would prevent the solution from operating fully within Air Force systems.

23. Please describe whether your solution can operate using data that resides solely within Air Force-owned or Air Force-approved systems, without requiring replication to vendor-managed environments, and explain how transferable or generalizable the solution’s capabilities are for reuse across other Air Force use cases, including voice-enabled applications beyond the TFSC mission.

24. How does your solution protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII), sensitive data, and customer interaction records?

25. Please describe encryption methods used for data in transit and at rest, identity and access control mechanisms, logging, auditability, and monitoring capabilities.

26. Please describe your data residency, data sovereignty, retention, and deletion policies, including where customer data is logically and physically stored.

27. Please describe how customer data is used for training, fine-tuning, analytics, or service improvement, and what controls are available to restrict such use.

28. Please identify any subcontractors, cloud service providers, or third-party components that are materially involved in hosting, processing, or securing customer data.

V. Technical Specifications and Scalability

29. Please describe the underlying software stack, architecture, deployment model, and major technical components of your solution.

30. Please describe the infrastructure, networking, and implementation prerequisites required to deploy and operate your solution.

31. What is the maximum number of concurrent users, calls, sessions, or transactions your system can support, and how does it scale to meet demand?

32. Please describe your approach to high availability, resilience, failover, continuity of operations, and disaster recovery.

33. Please describe the level of customization available for user interfaces, workflows, branding, and customer experience design.

34. Please identify whether your offering is multi-tenant, single-tenant, dedicated, or otherwise configurable for isolated government deployments.

35. Please describe your solution’s architecture and capabilities related to containerization. Specify your experience with technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes and describe how your solution can be delivered as a containerized product for deployment in a government-managed environment.

VI. Government Experience and Delivery Approach

36. Please describe your experience supporting federal agencies, Department of the Air Force organizations, or similarly regulated environments.

37. Please describe your implementation approach, including typical phases, timeline ranges, government dependencies, and required customer participation.

38. Please identify the types of government-furnished data, subject matter expert support, integration access, or infrastructure dependencies normally required for implementation.

39. Please describe your sustainment model, including operations support, service-level support, model updates, content updates, tuning, and administration responsibilities.

40. Please provide a rough-order-of-magnitude description of your pricing structure, such as licensing, implementation, integration, hosting, support, usage-based pricing, or seat-based pricing, if available for planning purposes.

41. Please provide any recommended acquisition, implementation, or deployment considerations the Government should take into account based on your experience.

VII. Feedback on Draft Government Requirements

42. Please review the draft requirements in Attachment B and identify: (a) requirements that are well aligned to current market capabilities; (b) requirements that may need clarification; (c) requirements that may significantly affect cost, schedule, or feasibility; (d) recommended alternative approaches or tradeoffs; and (e) any assumptions the Government should validate before finalizing requirements.

TFSC AI Modernization Initiative | RFI / Market Research Notice

ATTACHMENT B

Draft Vendor Requirements / Compliance Matrix TFSC AI Modernization Initiative

* This matrix is provided solely to facilitate industry feedback and does not represent evaluation criteria, scoring methodology, or finalized requirements. Responses will not be scored, ranked, or used for source selection. The Government recognizes that certain information, system details, or data streams may not currently be available to industry to fully assess every requirement. Accordingly, respondents are requested to provide their best assessment based on the information presently available, including whether each capability is available now, partially available, or planned for future delivery. Where a capability is not currently available, please identify any assumptions, dependencies, limitations, and anticipated path to delivery, if applicable.

Include compliance status, gaps, timeline, and RMF/SSP/POA&M support.

Include encryption, logging, retention, redaction, and access control details.

Include omnichannel support and multilingual capability if available.

Include “show your sources,” low-confidence routing, restricted-topic filtering, and no training on TFSC data unless authorized.

Include case fields, ownership, timestamps, notes, attachments, and audit trail.

Include search quality, synonyms, “did you mean,” deflection, and top-article analytics.

Include review/approve controls and explainable grounding from approved sources.

Include API catalog/ICD, secure exchange patterns, and integration test approach.

Include continuity with current/transition telephony model and customer context carryover.

Include supported identity standards such as SAML/OIDC and admin role model.

Include boundary/data-flow diagrams and hosting model options.

Include sizing approach, 99.9%+ uptime target, and performance assumptions.

Include volume, AHT, wait time, abandonment, SLA, case aging, deflection, handoff, and queue health metrics.

Include timeline, migration approach, operating model, and incident response.

Include references, case studies, and deployment relevance.

Include cost drivers, government data ownership, export steps, time, and cost.

Documentation plus demonstration required for critical integrations and workflows.

Use scored evaluation for differentiating nice-to-have capabilities.

Recommended use: Respondents may indicate whether each item is available today, planned on a roadmap, requires partner integration, or would materially affect cost, schedule, security posture, or feasibility.

Acronym List Purpose: Alphabetized acronyms and abbreviations appearing in the current matrix.