GSA, Google announce price cut for agencies on workflow tools, Gemini

Google will now provide the federal government with its Workspace offerings at a heavily discounted rate from the current pricing for its multiple award schedules program, the tech giant and the General Services Administration announced Thursday. 

In a press release shared with FedScoop, the GSA said Google will provide a temporary 71% price cut to federal agencies for its products and services, regardless of transaction size. The pricing arrangement on the multiple award schedules program expires Sept. 30. 

GSA said the “common-sense” pricing model is reflective of the agency’s “growing role” as the central hub for government procurement. The agency touted its use of “full purchasing power to negotiate cost savings, reduce redundancy and streamline IT acquisition.” 

GSA Administrator Stephen Ehikian said in the release that Google will now approach the federal government as “one unified customer.”

“President Trump’s GSA is working hard on this collaboration to turn that recognition into real savings to secure lower prices for best-in-class technology across all federal agencies,” Ehikian said. “By working with industry leaders like Google, we will continue to lower the cost of IT while providing improved experiences for the American taxpayers and the federal government.”

The agency said GSA and Google are set to continue collaborating on “ways to expand savings and simplify procurement across all FedRAMP authorized Google product categories.”

GSA added that the agency’s IT Vendor Management Office is working in partnership with Google to “expand competitive pricing” for its cloud platform services, a move intended to help the federal government’s ability to utilize innovative technology at better costs for mission objectives.

In a release from Google, the company touted Workspace’s FedRAMP High authorization and Gemini being the first AI assistant to receive the authorization. “Workspace is also paving the way for federal agencies to leverage state-of-the-art AI capabilities in a compliant manner,” the company said.

Google highlighted the productivity benefits its products provide for federal agencies, while noting that Workspace “accelerates the creation and sharing of emails, documents and … transcribed meeting notes.”