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AI proposal generation

Proposal generation made more strategic by AI

Leading companies that consistently generate winning proposals use AI-powered Strategic Response Management (SRM) to excel at efficiency, personalization, alignment between sales and proposal teams, and leveraging their best, most relevant content.

Conversely, companies with poorly managed proposal processes find that teams are out of sync, are disheartened by the RFP process, and expose the organization to risk by providing outdated, inaccurate, or non-compliant information.

While almost all companies (89%) are experimenting with AI for proposal generation, only leaders executing sophisticated AI for SRM are impacting multiple teams across their organizations: 

Challenges and best practices

As popular as GenAI-based RFP solutions and AI chatbots are, not everyone is optimizing proposal generation with AI. In fact, it’s only those companies that have figured out how to address the following factors that are making the most of AI to develop accurate, compliant proposals at scale.

Automation of proposal processes

Automation of proposal processes

Automating routine proposal generation tasks improves efficiency, reduces costs, and frees up proposal teams to focus on more strategic work. But consider all the tasks that go into managing a proposal — from evaluating whether to go forward with a proposal to team collaboration to developing customized content and much more. 

How do you layer sophisticated AI on top of those steps? It requires extensive experience in proposal processes to know which workflows AI can automate and how to make it work.

Finding proposal content

The best-case scenario is that every proposal is built with content from a central knowledge repository in a brand-approved template. Unfortunately, in most cases, content is spread out across past proposals, multiple cloud folders, various software platforms, and individual workstations.

AI can help, but it needs to operate alongside an intelligent content library to work effectively and reliably.

Finding proposal content

Proposal collaboration

  • While point solutions may help a few proposal team members take advantage of AI to respond faster, worthwhile ROI emerges from scaling AI’s benefits to multiple teams. When everyone in your organization has AI-powered access to your intelligent content library, you accelerate the generation of accurate, compliant proposals — and all other responses. 
  • Integrations with the other applications in your revenue tech stack can also avail AI proposal generation capabilities to multiple teams, and it will allow them to use AI from where they’re already working.

Generating content for proposals

  • Proposal teams have valid concerns about AI chatbots and GenAI-focused solutions exposing them to sensitive data leaks, AI-generated "hallucinations" that create fictional content, and the possibility of non-compliant submissions.
  • You want AI that leverages your content without actually training on it. You also want AI that automates workflows to simplify content governance, cementing organizational trust in the underlying information used in your proposals.s.

Creating first drafts

  • Asking AI to help create a proposal will help streamline the process. Asking AI to develop a whole draft will shift the paradigm. To upgrade from compiling and writing proposals to reviewing and spending more time fine tuning them for personalization and quality, you need much more than GenAI.
  • You need multiple AI technologies — GenAI, machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and more — working in concert with your constantly evolving content, processes, and workforce to take advantage of AI-generated drafts.

Justifying proposal generation

  • Even if AI is producing dividends, there’s still the question of whether or not you should be spending time on the proposal in the first place.
  • Engage AI at the RFP intake stage to analyze bids for specific requirements, identify red flags that automatically disqualify you, and assess whether your solution is the right fit — all before you commit any time to a proposal.

Verifying security and compliance

  • Consumer-grade AI does not comply with IT policies at most companies. Too much risk. Not enough accountability. Sales, security, and other “shadow” response teams may still try to use it to get ahead, though.
  • Before you let AI or anyone’s AI-enabled proposal management solution through the door, you’ll need complete visibility into their security posture.

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How Responsive enables AI proposal generation

AI proposal generation with a Strategic Response Management (SRM) platform unlocks the increased efficiency, improved collaboration, and profitable growth potential you’re hoping for from AI.

You still get the GenAI payoff of generating a custom response based on your specific prompt, but, by securely layering AI on top of multiple proposal processes, you also get automation, decision-making insight, and scalability to unify teams.

Project management

Responsive AI guides your teams through multiple processes. It will recommend collaborators, sequence reviews and workflows on the path to closing a deal, and drive regular content reviews from SMEs to ensure that proposal building blocks in your intelligent content library are updated and accurate.

Bid/no-bid analysis

Use Responsive AI to analyze an RFx and know at a glance whether any red flags would automatically disqualify you from winning the bid. Extract and sort key requirements into tables to analyze fit, plan your proposal, and ensure compliance.

Intelligent content library

Avoid the “garbage in, garbage out” pitfalls of consumer-grade AI chatbots. With AI making it easier for SMEs to add and update content on an ongoing basis, the AI you use to generate proposals will always output accurate content. Other AI capabilities that keep content fresh include auto-tagging content based on its context to ensure it’s appropriately categorized and flagging outdated or duplicative content.

Pre-populate proposals based on existing content

Move through an initial proposal quickly by letting Responsive AI recommend content based on what’s worked in past proposals. Customize as you go along (you’ll have much more time to do so) and expose the gaps where you want more help from SMEs.

Draft a complete proposal

Work faster through bulk execution: Start with your branded template of choice, and then instruct Responsive AI to create a complete proposal draft, drawing from the full body of knowledge contained in the Responsive Platform. Speed up the sales cycle by making AI proposal generation a “reviewing” exercise instead of a “writing” exercise.

Generate content

Responsive AI also includes the GenAI capability of interactive chat with the trusted content in your intelligent library. As you develop a proposal, simply ask the AI to provide what you need, whether it’s a specific answer or supporting document, or both. Or ask it to tailor proposal responses to your desired style and tone, ensuring consistency and quality.

Request a customized AI proposal generation demo

See why leading response teams trust Responsive for their RFP response management.

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