★ Annual Review 2027 tickets now on sale Get your tickets →

Resource Library

Learn to work smarter with Ask Pub K.

FAQ

Browse by topic.

Product Overview

What is Ask Pub K?

Ask Pub K is a purpose-built AI research and analysis platform for government-contracting professionals. It helps users move from complex GovCon questions to source-grounded answers, transparent citations, and practical work product using Pub K’s specialized government-contracting corpus and related authorities.

Product Overview

What does Pub K do?

Pub K is shorthand for The Public Contracts and Grants Institute of Washington, D.C. Pub K publishes briefs, analysis, and commentary; hosts events for the GovCon community; and maintains specialized source material for professionals who work with public contracts, grants, procurement, compliance, claims, and related government-contracting issues.

Product Overview

How is Ask Pub K different from Pub K?

Pub K is the broader GovCon publishing, events, and knowledge platform. Ask Pub K is an AI research and analysis platform built around Pub K’s specialized GovCon source material to help users research questions, analyze authorities, review primary and secondary resources, and produce practical work product.

Product Overview

What makes Ask Pub K different from ChatGPT, Claude, CoCounsel, Westlaw, or other AI research tools?

Ask Pub K is designed specifically for government-contracting professionals and GovCon research workflows. Unlike general-purpose AI tools, it is built around a specialized Pub K corpus and related government-contracting authorities, including statutes, regulations, cases, board and agency decisions, agency guidance, and practitioner commentary.

Ask Pub K is also designed to support professional research habits: retrieving relevant authorities, ranking and filtering sources, showing citations, preserving research context, asking clarifying questions where useful, and turning research into structured professional work product.

Product Overview

Do I need to be an existing Pub K subscriber to use Ask Pub K?

No. Pub K’s products — including Briefs, event tickets, sponsorships, and the Ask Pub K platform — are available separately.

Core Capabilities

What does Ask Pub K do?

Ask Pub K is designed to support the full GovCon research workflow — from finding and evaluating authorities to producing practical, review-ready work product. Current primary features include:

  1. GovCon Research – Research and synthesize cases, statutes, regulations, board and agency decisions, agency guidance, and practitioner commentary using Pub K’s specialized corpus.
  2. Cited Answers for Accuracy Verification – Get inline citations with direct access to the authorities and supporting passages behind the analysis, instead of relying on black-box answers.
  3. Guided Research – Work through complex questions with clarifying questions, sub-issue analysis, and persistent research context.
  4. Authority Ranking & Source Filtering – Surface the most relevant and authoritative sources while distinguishing controlling or persuasive authority from lower-value materials.
  5. Professional Work Product – Turn research and analysis into professional documents based on the authorities identified.
  6. Uncertainty & Safe-Fail Controls – Identify gaps, conflicting authority, and limits in the available support rather than presenting unsupported conclusions as certain.
  7. Professional Security & Confidentiality Controls – Use authentication, customer isolation, auditability, provenance, usage controls, and safeguards designed for sensitive professional research.

In the coming months, planned features include document uploads, templated and custom workflows, and team collaboration.

Core Capabilities

What are the primary benefits of using Ask Pub K?

Ask Pub K helps government-contracting professionals work faster, go deeper, and produce more useful research and analysis. It reduces the time required to identify relevant authorities, understand complex GovCon issues, compare competing interpretations, and move from research to practical work product.

The primary benefits include:

  1. Faster GovCon research – Users can move quickly from a legal, regulatory, procurement, compliance, claims, protest, or contract-administration question to a focused set of relevant authorities and analysis.
  2. More transparent answers – Ask Pub K is designed to provide citations and source access so users can verify the authorities behind an answer rather than relying on unsupported conclusions.
  3. Better issue spotting – Users can identify related issues, risks, ambiguities, missing facts, contrary authority, and questions that may require legal, contracts, compliance, or business review.
  4. Deeper analysis – Ask Pub K can compare statutes, regulations, FAR and DFARS provisions, cases, agency guidance, and Pub K commentary to help users understand how authorities fit together.
  5. Stronger work product – Users can turn research into Executive Briefs, Research Memos, client alerts, issue outlines, agency-question lists, compliance summaries, bid/no-bid materials, protest or claim evaluation notes, and internal briefings.
  6. Persistent research context – Users can ask follow-up questions, refine the analysis, and build on prior answers without starting over each time.
  7. GovCon-specific focus – Ask Pub K is built for government-contracting workflows rather than general-purpose AI use, making it better suited for the terminology, authorities, and practical questions GovCon professionals encounter.

Core Capabilities

What types of questions work best in Ask Pub K?

Ask Pub K works best with specific government-contracting questions that ask for research, analysis, comparison, issue spotting, or work product. The strongest questions give Ask Pub K enough context to understand the legal, regulatory, procurement, compliance, contract-administration, claims, protest, ethics, or business issue the user is trying to solve.

Good questions often ask Ask Pub K to:

  1. Identify governing authorities – For example, users can ask which statutes, regulations, FAR or DFARS provisions, agency supplements, cases, board decisions, agency guidance, or Pub K materials are relevant to a particular issue.
  2. Explain a rule or requirement – Users can ask Ask Pub K to explain a procurement rule, contract clause, compliance obligation, protest standard, claims requirement, ethics restriction, or agency-specific requirement in practical terms.
  3. Compare authorities or interpretations – Users can ask how different cases, regulations, clauses, forums, agencies, or interpretations address the same issue, including which authorities are controlling, persuasive, distinguishable, or potentially in tension.
  4. Analyze a specific GovCon problem – Users can describe a solicitation issue, contract-administration question, compliance concern, bid protest argument, claim element, flow-down issue, or regulatory development and ask Ask Pub K to organize the analysis.
  5. Identify risks, gaps, and questions – Users can ask Ask Pub K to flag ambiguities, missing facts, contrary authority, compliance risks, protest-sensitive issues, contract risks, or questions that should be raised with an agency, customer, subcontractor, counsel, or internal team.
  6. Turn research into work product – Users can ask Ask Pub K to convert the analysis into an Executive Brief, Research Memo, client alert, issue outline, checklist, table, comparison chart, agency-question list, bid/no-bid memo, protest evaluation, claim analysis, or internal briefing.

Broad or vague questions can still be useful as a starting point, but users will usually get better results by adding the relevant facts, agency, forum, contract or procurement context, desired level of detail, and preferred output format.

Core Capabilities

Can Ask Pub K identify relevant FAR or DFARS provisions?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help identify, explain, and compare relevant FAR, DFARS, and agency-supplement provisions for government-contracting questions. Ask Pub K also checks for class deviations and Revolutionary FAR Overhaul updates to clauses. Users can use Ask Pub K to understand clause requirements, find related authorities, assess how provisions apply to a procurement or contract issue, and turn the research into practical work product for legal, contracts, compliance, capture, or operations teams.

Core Capabilities

Can Ask Pub K summarize a GAO or court decision?

Yes. Ask Pub K can summarize GAO, Court of Federal Claims, Federal Circuit, board, and other government-contracting decisions by identifying the issue, holding, reasoning, key facts, procedural posture, cited authorities, and practical significance. Users can also ask Ask Pub K to compare the decision with related authorities, explain how it fits within a line of cases, identify useful quotations or passages, and turn the analysis into structured work product.

Core Capabilities

Can Ask Pub K compare multiple authorities?

Yes. Ask Pub K can compare multiple authorities by identifying how cases, statutes, regulations, contract clauses, agency guidance, and practitioner commentary address the same issue. It can help users distinguish controlling authority from persuasive authority, identify conflicts or gaps, compare reasoning across forums or agencies, evaluate competing interpretations, and organize the analysis for research, counseling, strategy, or briefing.

Core Capabilities

Can Ask Pub K help identify procurement requirements?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help identify procurement requirements by analyzing solicitations, FAR and agency clauses, statutes, regulations, agency guidance, and related authorities. Users can ask Ask Pub K to identify submission instructions, evaluation criteria, mandatory clauses, flow-down requirements, compliance obligations, deadlines, protest risks, and questions or ambiguities that may need to be raised with the agency.

Core Capabilities

Can Ask Pub K help me understand a new regulatory development?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help users understand a new regulatory development by identifying the relevant rule, statute, agency action, guidance, commentary, and related authorities; summarizing what changed; explaining who may be affected; and highlighting practical implications for government contractors, agencies, counsel, compliance teams, and business-development teams. Users can also ask follow-up questions, compare the development with prior rules or guidance, and turn the analysis into a briefing, client alert, compliance summary, or internal action memo.

Core Capabilities

Can Ask Pub K help prepare research for a client or internal team?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help prepare research for a client or internal team by identifying relevant authorities, summarizing key rules and decisions, comparing competing interpretations, organizing findings by issue, and developing structured work product such as Executive Briefs, Research Memos, client alerts, internal briefings, issue outlines, and decision-support materials. Users can use Ask Pub K to move from initial research questions to organized, citation-supported analysis that is easier to review, refine, and share.

Use Cases by Team

How can a law firm use Ask Pub K?

Law firms can use Ask Pub K to research government-contracting legal, regulatory, procurement, and compliance questions; identify and compare relevant authorities; review supporting citations; and turn research into professional work product for internal analysis, client counseling, bid protests, claims, compliance matters, investigations, and contract-administration issues.

Use Cases by Team

How can an in-house legal team use Ask Pub K?

In-house legal teams can use Ask Pub K to research government-contracting legal, regulatory, procurement, and compliance questions; review and understand solicitation and contract terms; develop compliance materials; prepare tighter scopes of work and budgets for outside counsel; and turn research into practical work product for counseling business teams, supporting contract administration, assessing bid protest or claims issues, and evaluating compliance obligations.

Use Cases by Team

How can a government agency use Ask Pub K?

Agencies can use Ask Pub K to research government-contracting legal, regulatory, procurement, and compliance questions; draft and review solicitation and contract terms; evaluate and mitigate bid protest risks; respond to contractor claims; and turn research into practical work product for counseling program teams, supporting contract administration, and evaluating contractor compliance and deliverables.

Use Cases by Team

How can a government contractor use Ask Pub K?

Government contractors can use Ask Pub K to research procurement requirements, solicitation terms, contract clauses, compliance obligations, bid protest risks, claims issues, agency guidance, and relevant case law. Ask Pub K can help legal, contracts, compliance, operations, capture, and executive teams understand applicable authorities, evaluate risks, prepare internal guidance, and convert research into practical work product for business decisions.

Use Cases by Team

How can a compliance team use Ask Pub K?

Compliance teams can use Ask Pub K to research and analyze GovCon compliance topics; develop policies, procedures, and training materials; assess hotline reports or investigation issues against applicable standards; evaluate mandatory and voluntary disclosure considerations; and organize findings into records that support the compliance lifecycle.

Use Cases by Team

How can a business-development or capture team use Ask Pub K?

Business-development and capture teams can use Ask Pub K to analyze and summarize solicitations, understand procurement requirements and solicitation instructions, identify protest or compliance risks, develop proposal strategies, prepare questions for the agency, and draft proposal-related language grounded in the applicable procurement framework.

GovCon Workflows

How can Ask Pub K help with bid protests?

Ask Pub K can help with bid protests by researching protest grounds, timeliness rules, forum-specific standards, procurement statutes and regulations, GAO and court decisions, agency guidance, and related Pub K analysis. Users can identify and compare relevant authorities, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of potential protest arguments, assess common agency defenses, and turn the research into structured work product for protest evaluation, strategy, or briefing.

GovCon Workflows

Can Ask Pub K help with claims?

Ask Pub K can help with contract claims and requests for equitable adjustment by researching claim elements, certification requirements, notice and timing rules, contract clauses, board and court decisions, agency guidance, and related Pub K analysis. Users can identify and compare relevant authorities, evaluate potential entitlement and damages issues, assess common government defenses, and turn the research into structured work product for claim evaluation, strategy, or briefing.

GovCon Workflows

Can Ask Pub K help review a solicitation?

Ask Pub K can help review solicitations by identifying and explaining relevant procurement requirements, FAR and agency clauses, evaluation criteria, submission instructions, protest risks, compliance obligations, and related agency guidance. Users can use Ask Pub K to analyze solicitation structure, flag issues for legal or business review, compare requirements against applicable authorities, and turn the research into practical work product for bid/no-bid decisions, proposal strategy, questions to the agency, or internal review.

GovCon Workflows

Can Ask Pub K help analyze a government contract?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help analyze government contracts by identifying and explaining relevant clauses, statutory and regulatory requirements, agency guidance, contract-administration issues, compliance obligations, claims risks, flow-down requirements, and related authorities. Users can use Ask Pub K to understand how contract terms interact with FAR, DFARS, agency supplements, case law, and practical GovCon guidance, and to turn the analysis into structured work product for legal, contracts, compliance, operations, or management review.

GovCon Workflows

Can Ask Pub K help identify and manage compliance concerns?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help identify compliance concerns by researching applicable statutes, regulations, contract clauses, agency guidance, enforcement decisions, disclosure standards, and related Pub K analysis. Users can use Ask Pub K to evaluate potential obligations, identify risk areas, compare applicable standards, develop compliance materials, support internal investigations, and organize findings into practical work product for legal, compliance, contracts, operations, or management review.

GovCon Workflows

Can Ask Pub K help with contract administration?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help with contract-administration questions involving clauses, deliverables, inspection and acceptance, changes, delays, disputes, subcontracting, flow-downs, invoicing, closeout, and compliance obligations. Users can ask Ask Pub K to identify relevant authorities, explain contract requirements, compare interpretations, and organize research into guidance for legal, contracts, program, compliance, or operations teams.

GovCon Workflows

Can Ask Pub K help with ethics questions?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help research government-contracting ethics issues, including conflicts of interest, gifts, procurement integrity, revolving-door restrictions, contractor codes of business ethics and conduct, mandatory disclosure considerations, and related compliance obligations. Users can ask Ask Pub K to identify relevant statutes, regulations, FAR provisions, agency guidance, enforcement materials, and commentary, and to organize the analysis for review by legal or compliance professionals.

GovCon Workflows

Can Ask Pub K help with grants or assistance agreements?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help research grants and assistance-agreement issues where relevant source material is available, including statutory and regulatory requirements, agency guidance, compliance obligations, audit considerations, award terms, disputes, and enforcement risks. Users can ask Ask Pub K to identify authorities, summarize requirements, compare guidance, and prepare practical work product for legal, compliance, program, or management review.

GovCon Workflows

What kinds of work product can Ask Pub K produce?

Ask Pub K can help turn research into practical professional work product, including Executive Briefs, Research Memos, client alerts, issue outlines, decision-support memos, compliance summaries, agency-question lists, bid/no-bid materials, protest or claim evaluation notes, talking points, and internal briefings.

GovCon Workflows

Can I create an Executive Brief or Research Memo?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help convert research into an Executive Brief, Research Memo, or similar structured work product. Users can ask for a concise executive summary, detailed issue analysis, relevant authorities, competing interpretations, practical implications, recommended next steps, and citations supporting the analysis.

Sources, Citations & Verification

What sources does Ask Pub K search?

Ask Pub K searches and analyzes government-contracting source material, including Pub K materials and relevant authorities such as statutes, regulations, FAR and agency supplements, contract clauses, GAO decisions, Court of Federal Claims decisions, Federal Circuit decisions, board decisions, agency policies and guidance, and practitioner commentary.

Sources, Citations & Verification

Does Ask Pub K search Pub K content?

Yes. Ask Pub K is built around Pub K’s specialized GovCon corpus that includes articles from 2000 to the present and can search and analyze Pub K content and analysis. That connection to Pub K’s accumulated government-contracting source material is a central part of Ask Pub K’s value.

Sources, Citations & Verification

Does Ask Pub K search sources outside Pub K?

Yes. Ask Pub K can use relevant government-contracting sources outside Pub K, including statutes, regulations, FAR and agency supplements, contract clauses, case law, board decisions, and agency policies and guidance. It is designed to connect Pub K’s specialized materials with the broader body of authorities needed for GovCon research.

Sources, Citations & Verification

Does Ask Pub K provide citations?

Yes. Ask Pub K is designed to provide citations so users can see the authorities and supporting passages behind an answer. Citations help users verify the source of the analysis, review the underlying authority directly, and apply professional judgment before relying on the result.

Sources, Citations & Verification

What types of sources can Ask Pub K cite?

Ask Pub K can cite government-contracting authorities and supporting materials such as statutes, regulations, FAR and agency supplements, contract clauses, GAO decisions, Court of Federal Claims decisions, Federal Circuit decisions, board decisions, agency guidance and policies, professional commentary, and Pub K materials.

Sources, Citations & Verification

Are citations linked to the original source?

Where available, Ask Pub K links citations to the underlying source material so users can inspect the authority directly. Users should review the cited material, confirm that it supports the proposition for which it is cited, and apply their own professional judgment before relying on the analysis.

Sources, Citations & Verification

Can I open the source directly from Ask Pub K?

Yes. Source review is a core part of Ask Pub K’s research experience. Users can open cited or retrieved sources where links are available, review the relevant passages, and use the source material to verify, refine, or challenge the answer.

Sources, Citations & Verification

How does Ask Pub K determine which sources to cite?

Ask Pub K uses a retrieval-first research approach to identify, rank, filter, and cite source material relevant to the user’s question. It prioritizes sources based on relevance, authority, and usefulness to the issue being analyzed, while helping users distinguish stronger sources from lower-value or merely background materials.

Sources, Citations & Verification

Should I independently verify citations?

Yes. Users should review the supporting materials identified by Ask Pub K, test conclusions, confirm that cited authorities support the analysis, and apply their own professional judgment before relying on the result.

Sources, Citations & Verification

How current is the information available through Ask Pub K?

Ask Pub K has a living library of GovCon-related materials that is continuously updated and expanded. Users should still check official sources and confirm the current status of important authorities before relying on any response.

Sources, Citations & Verification

What should users do if they see an incorrect answer or citation?

Users should review the cited sources, confirm whether the authority supports the answer, and apply professional judgment before relying on the result. If an answer or citation appears incorrect, users should report it to the Ask Pub K team with the prompt, answer, citation, and a short description of the issue so it can be reviewed.

Working With Ask Pub K

Can I ask questions in natural language?

Yes. Users can ask Ask Pub K questions in ordinary language, without needing Boolean search terms, database commands, or formal legal-research syntax. Ask Pub K can help refine broad or unclear questions, ask clarifying questions where useful, break complex issues into sub-issues, and guide users toward more precise research prompts as the analysis develops.

Working With Ask Pub K

Can I ask follow-up questions?

Yes. Users can ask follow-up questions to refine an issue, request additional authorities, explore related questions, test a conclusion, compare interpretations, or ask for deeper analysis. Follow-up questions help preserve research context and allow the user to move from an initial answer to a more complete analysis.

Working With Ask Pub K

Does Ask Pub K remember the context of my current conversation?

Yes. Ask Pub K can use the context of the current conversation to support follow-up questions and continued research. This allows users to refine a question, build on earlier answers, request additional authorities, and develop a more complete analysis without restating the entire issue each time.

Working With Ask Pub K

Can I ask it to provide a more detailed analysis after an initial answer?

Yes. Users can ask Ask Pub K to expand an initial answer with more detail, additional authorities, competing interpretations, contrary authority, practical implications, or a more formal work-product format. This makes it possible to start with a quick answer and then deepen the analysis as needed.

Working With Ask Pub K

Can I narrow my research by agency?

Yes. Users can ask Ask Pub K to focus a research question on a particular agency, agency-specific regulation, supplement, guidance document, procurement practice, or line of decisions where relevant source material is available. This can help users distinguish government-wide rules from agency-specific requirements or practices.

Working With Ask Pub K

Can I ask Ask Pub K to improve my prompt?

Yes. Users can ask Ask Pub K to improve, clarify, or narrow a prompt. Ask Pub K can help identify missing facts, separate a broad issue into sub-questions, suggest more precise research framing, and turn a general inquiry into a better GovCon research question.

Working With Ask Pub K

Can I ask for a specific output format?

Yes. Users can ask Ask Pub K to present results in a specific format, such as a short answer, detailed analysis, issue outline, research memo, executive brief, client alert, checklist, table, comparison chart, talking points, or internal briefing. The requested format should match the audience and decision the user is trying to support.

Working With Ask Pub K

How do I write a strong prompt for Ask Pub K?

A strong prompt gives Ask Pub K enough context to understand the issue, the audience, and the desired output. Users should identify the government-contracting topic, relevant facts, jurisdiction or forum if known, agency if relevant, the type of authority they want considered, and the format they want back. A good prompt might ask Ask Pub K to identify the governing rule, summarize relevant authorities, compare competing interpretations, flag contrary authority, and produce a practical work product such as a research memo, executive brief, checklist, or table.

Working With Ask Pub K

What should I include in my prompt to get a better answer?

Users should include the legal or business question, the procurement or contract context, key facts, relevant dates or deadlines, the agency or forum, the type of decision being supported, and the preferred level of detail. It also helps to say whether the answer should be practical, legal, strategic, compliance-focused, executive-level, or written for a particular audience such as outside counsel, in-house counsel, contracts, compliance, capture, leadership, or a client.

Working With Ask Pub K

Can I ask Ask Pub K to revise or improve its answer?

Yes. Users can ask Ask Pub K to revise an answer by making it shorter, more detailed, more practical, more formal, more client-ready, more executive-focused, or more heavily supported by citations. Users can also ask Ask Pub K to add contrary authority, separate legal rules from practical implications, convert the answer into a memo or brief, create a table, identify assumptions, or explain what additional facts would improve the analysis.

Outputs, Saved Work & Exporting

Can I save my Ask Pub K research?

Yes. Ask Pub K can preserve research history so users can return to prior prompts and responses. Users may also export responses and work product in common formats such as Word, PDF, Markdown, Excel, or CSV, depending on the type of output.

Outputs, Saved Work & Exporting

Can I return to previous conversations?

Yes. Users can return to previous research conversations and continue working from the context already developed. This helps preserve research history, avoid duplicating work, and support longer-form analysis that develops over multiple questions.

Outputs, Saved Work & Exporting

Can I save an answer for later?

Yes. Users can save useful answers, research outputs, and deliverables for later review. Saved answers can help preserve important authorities, reasoning, and work product that may be useful for a client matter, internal project, compliance issue, procurement, or business decision.

Outputs, Saved Work & Exporting

Can I export results to Word, PDF, Markdown, Excel, or CSV?

Yes. Users may export responses and structured outputs to common formats such as Word, PDF, Markdown, Excel, or CSV, depending on the type of work product. Narrative analysis is typically best suited for Word, PDF, or Markdown, while tables, trackers, and structured issue lists may be better suited for Excel or CSV.

Document Analysis & Uploads

Can Ask Pub K help analyze a solicitation?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help analyze solicitations by identifying submission instructions, evaluation criteria, deadlines, mandatory clauses, compliance obligations, ambiguities, protest-sensitive issues, and questions that may need to be raised with the agency. Users can ask Ask Pub K to organize the analysis into an executive summary, requirements table, issue list, proposal-strategy memo, or set of recommended next steps.

Document Analysis & Uploads

Can Ask Pub K help review a government contract?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help review government contracts by identifying provisions that may affect legal, compliance, financial, operational, or contract-administration risk. It can help users analyze clauses addressing scope, deliverables, inspection and acceptance, changes, delays, invoicing, payment, termination, data rights, cybersecurity, flow-downs, disputes, claims, reporting obligations, and related authorities.

Document Analysis & Uploads

Can Ask Pub K analyze flow-down requirements?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help analyze flow-down requirements by identifying prime-contract clauses, solicitation provisions, regulatory requirements, and agency-specific terms that may need to be flowed down to subcontractors. Users can ask Ask Pub K to distinguish mandatory flow-downs from discretionary or risk-based flow-downs, explain why a clause may apply, identify subcontractor-facing obligations, and organize the results into a clause matrix or subcontract review checklist.

Document Analysis & Uploads

Can Ask Pub K help draft subcontract terms and conditions?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help draft or refine subcontract terms and conditions by identifying relevant prime-contract obligations, FAR and agency clauses, flow-down requirements, compliance obligations, risk-allocation provisions, and practical contract-administration terms. Users can ask Ask Pub K to prepare draft language, compare alternative clauses, flag provisions requiring legal review, and align subcontract terms with the prime contract, procurement requirements, and governing authorities.

Document Analysis & Uploads

Can Ask Pub K help develop legal arguments based on case law?

Yes. Ask Pub K can help develop legal arguments by identifying relevant case law, summarizing holdings and reasoning, comparing favorable and unfavorable authorities, distinguishing adverse decisions, and organizing arguments around the governing legal standard. Users can ask Ask Pub K to build an argument outline, identify supporting and contrary authority, test the strength of a position, and turn the analysis into a research memo, motion outline, protest argument, claim analysis, or client-facing explanation.

Document Analysis & Uploads

Can I upload documents to Ask Pub K?

Not yet. Users can currently cut and paste document text or other information into Ask Pub K for analysis, provided the information is appropriate for use in the platform and consistent with the user’s confidentiality, privilege, cybersecurity, and data-handling obligations. The ability to upload documents directly is coming soon.

Information Security & Privilege

How does Ask Pub K protect customer information?

Ask Pub K is designed with professional security and confidentiality controls appropriate for sensitive business research, including authentication, customer separation, encrypted connections, operational monitoring, logging, source provenance, usage controls, auditability, and retention and deletion practices. Users should follow their organization’s policies for confidential, privileged, controlled, export-controlled, classified, or otherwise sensitive information.

Information Security & Privilege

What authentication and access controls does Ask Pub K use?

Ask Pub K supports safeguards intended to help organizations control account access, including Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and prompt user-access revocation. The controls available to a particular customer may depend on the customer’s plan and implementation. Organizations evaluating Ask Pub K should confirm their required identity, provisioning, permission, and offboarding controls during the security or enterprise-review process.

Information Security & Privilege

Is customer data encrypted?

Yes. Data is encrypted in transit using TLS 1.3 and at rest using AES-256.

Information Security & Privilege

Is customer data separated from other customers’ data?

Yes. Ask Pub K is designed to separate customer data from other customers’ data.

Information Security & Privilege

Is customer data used to train AI models?

No. Customer uploads, search history, and generated work product are strictly isolated and never used to train shared or base AI models.

Information Security & Privilege

Where is data hosted?

Customers who need hosting or data-residency information for a security, legal, or procurement review should contact the Ask Pub K team for the current approved documentation. Customer service should not identify a provider or region until the information has been verified by the security or technical owner.

Information Security & Privilege

Is Ask Pub K SOC 2 compliant?

SOC 2 attestation is pending. Ask Pub K was built using the latest cybersecurity technologies, and additional cybersecurity frameworks are planned for future releases. More information is available on our Trust Center, which is managed by Vanta.

Information Security & Privilege

Does using Ask Pub K protect or waive attorney-client privilege or work-product protection?

Ask Pub K seeks to protect, and not waive, the attorney-client privilege and work-product protection. For example, Ask Pub K has boxes to check indicating that an attorney is using the platform as part of an attorney-client matter; treats Member Content as confidential; uses subprocessors that offer written confidentiality agreements and use restrictions; does not use Member Content to train models; uses encryption in transit and at rest; and will coordinate with the Member if and when there is any external inquiry about their content. However, only courts can decide whether the standards have been met for preserving the attorney-client privilege and work-product protection. Users should follow their organization’s rules, and consult qualified counsel, before submitting privileged, work-product, or other sensitive information.

Information Security & Privilege

Are there types of information users should not enter into Ask Pub K?

Yes. Users should not enter information that their organization, law, regulation, contract, protective order, security policy, or professional obligation prohibits them from using in the platform. This may include classified information, export-controlled information, Controlled Unclassified Information, Federal Contract Information, privileged materials, confidential business information, source-selection information, procurement-sensitive information, personal data, or other restricted information unless the user is authorized to do so and the platform environment is approved for that use.

Information Security & Privilege

Is Ask Pub K designed for organizations with government-contracting cybersecurity requirements?

Ask Pub K is designed with government-contracting users in mind, including law firms, contractors, agencies, and compliance teams that operate in regulated environments. Organizations should evaluate Ask Pub K against their own cybersecurity, contractual, regulatory, and data-handling requirements before using it for controlled or sensitive information.

Demos & Pricing

Can I schedule a demo?

Yes. Schedule a demo here.

Demos & Pricing

Is there a free trial available for Ask Pub K?

Yes. Ask Pub K is available for a free one-week trial. To take advantage of this offer, click here.

Demos & Pricing

How do I subscribe to Ask Pub K?

Just click here.

Demos & Pricing

Do I need a subscription to other Pub K products to use Ask Pub K?

No. A Pub K subscription is not required to use Ask Pub K. Pub K’s products — including Briefs, events, sponsorships, and Ask Pub K — are available separately.

Demos & Pricing

How much does Ask Pub K cost?

Ask Pub K is available at a special Introductory Rate of $79 per person / per month.

Demos & Pricing

Is pricing per user?

Yes. Ask Pub K pricing is generally per user.

Demos & Pricing

Are group or enterprise subscriptions available?

Group and enterprise subscriptions are coming soon.

Demos & Pricing

Is there an Ask Pub K app for desktop or mobile?

Ask Pub K is available on desktop and mobile devices from any web browser. An app for Ask Pub K is coming soon.

Support & Onboarding

What happens after purchase?

After purchase, the user should receive instructions for activating the account, signing in, accessing onboarding materials, and contacting support. New users should confirm that they can access the platform, review responsible-use and source-verification guidance, and try an initial GovCon research workflow.

For team or organization-level purchases, Customer Success may coordinate the user list, sign-in requirements, training, priority use cases, and follow-up support. If access instructions do not arrive or the account cannot be activated, the customer should contact support with the purchaser’s name, organization, email address, purchase date, and a description of the issue. Customers should never send passwords, payment-card numbers, or security credentials through a support request.

Support & Onboarding

How do I reach customer service?

Users can access Claire, Ask Pub K’s customer-success chatbot, by clicking here, calling (888) 609-3137, or emailing admin@pub-k.org.

When requesting help, include your name, organization, account email, a concise description of the issue, the time it occurred, and any non-sensitive screenshots or error messages that may help reproduce it. Do not send passwords, payment-card numbers, security credentials, or restricted information. Account lockouts, payment problems blocking access, suspected security incidents, and urgent legal or privilege concerns should be routed to a person promptly.

Support & Onboarding

Can I speak with a person?

Yes. If Claire is unable to answer your questions, just call (888) 609-3137 and press 0 to reach a live person M-F, 9 am – 5 pm EST.

Support & Onboarding

Is training available?

Yes. Training is available through scheduled remote sessions. Schedule a training here.

Training can cover account access, strong prompting, research workflows, reviewing and verifying citations, follow-up questions, responsible handling of pasted text, exports, and common GovCon use cases. Team sessions may be tailored to the organization’s roles and priority workflows when arranged in advance. Support can also help with product questions, technical issues, onboarding, feedback, and routing specialized questions to the appropriate owner.

Get started with Ask Pub K

Ask Pub K is available at a special Introductory Rate of $79 per person / per month, with a free one-week trial.

Try Ask Pub K →