> procurement is so broken

Anecdata: while i was in a tiny tiny software company, we got an in at a large auto manufacturer. They said they had been trying to get someone to do that job for like 2 years.

The job was of the 'two people 3 months' magnitude. The procurement system was also of the 'two people 3 months' magnitude so we simply gave up.

In the article's case, they could have done this even before coding assistants. It would have cost the estimated 5 million instead of 850k, but that's still 10x less than the 54 million.

Yes, I think the innovation here is social as much as technical. The AI Magic Sprinkle fairy dust on the proposal to solve internally, is what grants permission to go ahead. It both increases the chances of actual success and gives something external to put the blame on if something fails.