Brandon Card, founder and CEO of Terzo, published an op-ed in RealClearPolicy on August 3, 2026, arguing that federal agencies should manage contracts as financial assets rather than treating them as legal or administrative paperwork. The piece, titled "Government Contracts Are a Financial Asset," highlights a critical gap in how the U.S. government oversees its contractual commitments, with implications for accountability, audit readiness, and taxpayer dollars.
Card points to the Department of Defense's approximately $445 billion in annual contract obligations across roughly 226,000 active contracts, coupled with eight consecutive failed audits, as evidence that agencies lack real-time visibility into what their own contracts commit them to. This lack of visibility means agencies cannot effectively track spending, assess risk, or ensure compliance, leading to financial mismanagement and inefficiency. The op-ed argues that no team, regardless of experience or size, can manually understand millions of contracts on a continuous basis, making a compelling case for AI-assisted contract analysis.
The implications of this argument extend beyond government. If federal agencies adopted contract intelligence tools, they could gain the same financial visibility that Terzo's platform provides to enterprise customers. In the private sector, that visibility runs through Document AI, which extracts obligations, pricing, and terms from contracts and purchase orders, and Contract Analytics, which turns that extracted data into spend, compliance, and risk dashboards. These are the categories of tooling Card's op-ed points to as a model for how agencies could track obligations across large contract portfolios.
Card's argument carries significant weight amid growing scrutiny of federal spending and audit failures. The Department of Defense's repeated inability to pass audits has been a longstanding concern, and the sheer volume of contracts makes manual oversight impossible. By treating contracts as financial assets, agencies could unlock real-time insights into obligations, identify cost-saving opportunities, and improve compliance. This shift would not only enhance accountability but also potentially save billions in wasted or mismanaged funds. The op-ed suggests that AI can bridge the gap, providing the continuous monitoring and analysis needed to manage complex contract ecosystems.
The full op-ed is available on RealClearPolicy, where Card elaborates on the need for contract intelligence in government. His company, Terzo, is an AI financial intelligence platform that finds money enterprises lose across their third-party and supplier spend ecosystem, including contracts, invoices, purchase orders, and renewals. Founded in 2020, Terzo operates in the United States, Canada, and India. The op-ed's publication signals a growing recognition that the same tools transforming private-sector contract management could be key to solving public-sector financial accountability challenges.
As federal agencies face increasing pressure to demonstrate fiscal responsibility, Card's call to action may resonate with policymakers and auditors alike. The implications are clear: without real-time contract intelligence, agencies will continue to struggle with audit failures and miss opportunities to optimize spending. By adopting AI-driven solutions, they can treat contracts as the financial assets they are, ensuring better stewardship of public funds. This op-ed adds a significant voice to the debate over government modernization and the role of AI in public finance.
