How is AI changing RFP response and management?


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Marketing teams are familiar with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). But, did you know that proposal management AI is already happening?

78% of marketers in proposal management said using automated technology to execute more with less resource strain was their top priority. AI proposal management software is the next evolution in automating your RFP response process so you can achieve even more.

You have questions about how AI will impact your marketing role in today’s landscape. Below we have answers to commonly asked questions to help you understand your untapped potential with AI proposal management software.

How is AI changing the RFP industry?

The biggest thing that proposal management AI will change in our industry is prompting digital transformation. To truly leverage what AI offers, all of your systems must connect and share data with each other to add value across touchpoints. Artificial intelligence is a competitive advantage for response teams who leverage these capabilities.

Proposal management AI is also ushering an era of enterprise-level database requirements for content. AI is most powerful when it has a huge database to train itself on. If your RFP content library is not a clean and reliable database, this hinders the effectiveness of AI. To highly automate with AI, an organized content database is a key step in digital transformation.

Will AI replace humans?

AI will replace humans….and it’s already replacing humans. Look at the checkout stands, how you order food, and how you get information. Fifteen years ago I used to call a travel agent to book my flights and now flights are recommended to me online before I even need them.

Will proposal management AI replace my job?

Proposal management AI won’t replace your job. Actually, AI enriches your job and empowers you to do more strategic, creative work. No one wants to come in and look at numbers or do the same thing over and over again. AI gives you the opportunity to accomplish things you couldn’t before. You’ll have more time to reflect and to provide more organizational value.

Will AI proposal management software write all of my RFP responses?

The day AI proposal management software writes RFP responses is the day this blog will have written itself. One day artificial intelligence will write your RFP, drive you home, and cook you dinner. But don’t get too excited—we’re probably 30 years away from that.

What role do generative AI and GPT play in the process?

  • AI enables response teams to securely generate response content using patented machine learning capabilities and GPT technology in the Responsive Platform.

    In minutes,  AI will:

    • Improve productivity and increase overall effectiveness of a response
    • Draft response content from your Content Library and expansive data models of publicly available knowledge through GPT
    • Create response content that is easily understood by your audience

Learn more about how Responsive is utilizing AI.

How is AI proposal management software improving the RFP process?

High-performing response teams use AI proposal management software to efficiently intake and qualify opportunities. Analyzing projects without AI takes a lot of time, which involves reading through previous proposals and reports then taking the best guess about the outcome.

  • AI systems help you understand whether or not you should bid by analyzing and comparing previous RFP projects. Teams see the win potential and what resources might be required based on the average length of a project. Proposal management AI offers more strategic planning overall.
  • AI is changing the way teams “shred” their RFPs, making it easier to break up relevant sections, auto-identify response content, and assign questions to subject matter experts.
  • We’re starting to see tone and sentiment analysis as well. This capability will help reviewers adjust content to convey a more positive feeling by identifying a word that sounds negative, so you find a more suitable adjective that results in stronger content.

What kind of automation does AI bring to RFP and proposal management?

RFP management AI will consistently take over repetitive and mundane tasks that responders do today (but they don’t really want to do), such as:

  • Answering common, repetitive questions
  • Producing basic boilerplate copy
  • Exporting document formatting
  • Analyzing win-loss opportunities
  • Making bid/no-bid recommendations based on big-data analytics

AI looks at tens of thousands of past RFPs and connects the dots between the CRM wins and the products or the copy chosen in the RFPs. At APMP Bid & Proposal Con, one attendee said this type of analysis would take 30+ years for his team to complete manually.

How much time will our team save with AI proposal management software?

That all depends on how much time your team spends on repetitive tasks today that could be handled by AI proposal management software. And, what you do with the time you ultimately win back.

If you’re not answering the same question a thousand times, what can you achieve with that extra time? Maybe you level up the content you have in your content library to create winning proposals. You put more time into thinking about new avenues for generating revenue. And, you respond to RFPs you didn’t have time to before. Positive results will compound quickly.

How can our RFP team prepare for proposal management AI?

Make sure you have a future-ready team in place that is capable of making digital transformation happen. And, of course, make sure that team leverages AI proposal management software to its fullest capacity.

When choosing RFP software, the platform should plug into all of your data through system integrations. Your systems need to work cross-functionally and proposal teams should be able to collaborate together efficiently within those systems.

What are the current AI capabilities of the Responsive platform?

Responsive has the RFP response automation elements we just discussed, including auto-responses and an answer recommendation engine that proposal teams have been using for years.

With a well-maintained content library, it’s common to see Responsive users complete 60-70% of their RFP autonomously. The time given back to these proposal professionals allows them to develop higher quality content where personalization is needed, as well as put forth more proposals for more opportunities.

We’re starting to do bid fit analysis and later we will have sentiment analysis. As we begin to introduce natural language processing (NLP), responders will require significantly less intervention to shred and analyze requirements. Future AI capabilities are exciting and pretty limitless. As AI technology advances, so will Responsive.


As the first AI proposal management software in the industry, Responsive has already automated and improved the response process for future-ready organizations. Start your digital transformation by scheduling a demo of Responsive.


Phill Sundal

As Product Marketing Manager at RFPIO, Phill Sundal is passionate about go-to-market strategy and empowering individuals and organizations in their response management efforts. A graduate of the Carson Business College, Phill has been a PMM for high-growth SaaS companies for over five years, and is an emerging thought leader in the sales & marketing intelligence space. He’s also an experienced unicycler and drummer. Connect with Phill on LinkedIn.

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