Writing an RFP response is very hard. You need to pay close attention, do deep research in long papers, and write clear, correct answers, all before a tight deadline. Because this process is so hard, sales teams are interested in AI tools that promise a finished draft in minutes instead of days.

LLMs  are changing how sales teams write proposals, from short questionnaires to big, complicated bids. Companies are excited to use AI to automate RFP responses and finish the work much faster.

But is using AI to do the work the best answer? 

Not always. There are real compromises, and the right choice depends on your job. Some bid managers say a person should write the proposals to make sure they are the best quality. But sales and solutions teams often want to use AI for tasks that repeat, and RFPs are at the top of that list. 

Solutions Engineering Leader Sara Jones thinks a mix of people and software working together is the best way.

A mix of humans and software sounds like a good idea on paper. So what are the pros and cons of using this new tech?

How is AI Being Used for Managing Bids?

Before AI tools became mainstream, answering one technical question on a proposal could take a long time. You had to find the right document, read through it, figure out what was actually relevant, write something up, and then have someone check it. Multiply that by 50 or 100 questions and you’re looking at a lot of hours.

AI’s biggest impact is how much time gets cut out of the research and drafting stage.

With an AI system, the process gets compressed. You upload the proposal, the tool generates draft answers based on your existing content library, and then you go through and approve or fix whatever needs fixing. That’s the whole thing.

A 100-question RFP that used to take a team 10 to 12 hours can now be turned around in a fraction of that time. For teams that were previously saying no to certain bids because they just didn’t have the capacity, that’s a real shift.

Here are the most common use cases: 

Generating RFP Responses

This is the main way AI is used today. Sales teams agree that filling out questionnaires is one of the biggest time sinks in their workday. Any app that speeds this up gets attention fast.

This is the top use case we see across sales teams for a few key reasons:

• AI Bid Workflows Create More Opportunities: Some teams used to turn down new RFP chances because they didn’t have the time or people. AI changes this, allowing teams to take on more work.

• LLMs Help Sales Teams Focus on Selling: Many sales representatives see writing proposals as a chore that distracts them from their main job, which is selling. They would rather hand this work off to a computer.

• Saves SMEs Time and Repetitive Work: Automation keeps SMEs from security, compliance and legal teams out of the repetitive proposal process, saving time and preventing delays.

In short, sales professionals see any tool that allows them to write responses faster as a big win for their workflow.

Automating Compliance Questionnaires

Security and compliance questionnaires show up in more than half of all deals, based on a LinkedIn poll we ran with over 1,400 respondents. That means roughly every other deal comes with a long list of questions that usually requires help from someone outside the sales team to answer.

Compliance questionnaires are a big part of sales, showing up in over 53% of all deals, according to a LinkedIn poll we ran. For 11% of sales teams, they receive these on every deal, and for 42% of teams, they receive them on some deals.

Getting that extra person out of the loop saves real time. It also means fewer scheduling headaches and fewer deals getting delayed because someone is waiting on a reply.

The security and compliance questionnaire has become a staple of sales processes over the past decade.

That means every other deal is accompanied by a long list of questions that most likely require a teammate’s help to resolve. This is where automation really shines because getting an extra person out of the workflow loop creates measurable ROI.

Writing Free Form Proposals

This type of proposal is a different kind of challenge. Free-form proposals are common in public sector bids or EU tenders. They often ask you to write several pages explaining why your company is the best fit for a project. They have no standard format, so it is more like writing an essay than filling out a simple form.

This makes it a good use case for AI. If the system has access to your company’s knowledge base, it can quickly put together a solid first draft. This means no one has to start writing from a blank page. A person still needs to review the draft and make sure it is accurate, but the hard part of starting is done.

Free-form proposals are more art than science, which makes them less obvious for AI help. But because they are like prompts for a human writer, they actually work well for AI.

 These types of bids often ask you to “Write 3 pages explaining why you meet these project requirements.” Instead of asking a human to write all the basic content, an AI focused on writing proposals can help.

We expect this use case to grow as teams become more comfortable trusting AI with longer, more detailed content.

We expect to see this use case grow in popularity as users become more trusting of Large Language Models, in particular, those geared towards knowledge management.

What are the Risks of Using AI for Proposals?

So, what are the clear good and bad things about using this new technology? Here is what we are hearing from the people actually doing this work: sales reps, solutions teams, bid managers, and RFP specialists.

Overall, AI automation is being perceived as a net positive.

The hesitant feedback we’ve heard depends on your use case and the maturity of your bid management process.

Hallucination and Wrong Answers

AI systems can hallucinate. When they do, they produce answers that sound completely reasonable but are factually incorrect.  This tendency to make things up poses a serious problem in proposal automation especially while answering technical or compliance questions. Many users are rightly concerned about using AI tools for complex bids. 

The fix is to use systems that limit their answers to content from trusted, approved  sources. Also, a person must always review the work before anything goes out. This necessary human oversight is a key reason why some argue AI does not reduce work, but rather intensifies it. 

Giving Up *Some* Control

Some bid managers want to control every single word that goes into a proposal. This is a fair point to think about before you start using any automation tool. Most AI systems are built to assist you, not to replace your judgment. The tool writes a draft, and you decide what stays.

In the end, this often comes down to your personal comfort level. You are either comfortable with a robot helping you with your work, or you are not. One user even compared it to using a self-driving car.

What we hear most, however, is that having an automated tool is a huge benefit for creating that first draft. It helps search for information, check it, and write answers to questionnaires, making the start of the proposal process much easier.

AI is ANOTHER Tool to Manage

Teams are already dealing with a lot of software. Adding something new means onboarding, setup, and ongoing maintenance. That said, most bid teams have very little automation in their workflow to begin with, which is probably why adoption has been pretty quick in this space.

The Headcount Question

Any time a company talks about automation, people worry about job security. This is the big worry when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. The old idea is that automation means layoffs. No one wants a robot to replace them, even if a tool takes over dull tasks.

But the actual pattern we are seeing is that AI handles repetitive work like research and drafting. This shift lets bid managers focus more on strategy, checking quality, and making content perfect for each client. This change tends to make the job better, not obsolete. For example, searching for information to use in a proposal is seen as a waste of time. Offloading this to a tool frees up the user to focus on their actual job.

The Obvious Upsides of AI-Generated Bids

Less Manual Work (most of the time)

This is the most obvious win. In bid management, this benefit is huge because the work is so repetitive and time-consuming. Tasks like searching for source material, writing answers you have done many times before, and waiting for teammates to provide information all take a lot of time. AI handles most of that, removing the manual effort that each proposal requires.

Look at the effort needed to answer just one technical question on an RFP:

Before:

• Read and understand the question
• Search for the correct documentation
• Review sources
• Write the answers
• Proofread or have a teammate review

After:

• Upload proposal
• Approve or edit the automated answers

Getting rid of the need to manually research and write answers is a major jump forward in efficiency for bid managers.

Faster Turnaround on that First Draft

A 100-question proposal can take multiple people up to 12 hours to finish. AI automation cuts that time down a lot. You can find many ways to get faster RFP response strategies and optimize your workflow, but AI is the most powerful tool right now. This is a big win for efficiency because even though you will not hear if you won the deal any faster, the time saved for your team is huge.

Fewer People Needed in the Loop

Proposals normally pull in a lot of stakeholders. Sales, legal, technical teams, and sometimes finance all get involved. Each person adds time and causes delays. An AI system trained on your company’s content can handle a large number of those questions without asking anyone else. This means fewer meetings, fewer Slack messages, and fewer delays.

Searching, writing, and reviewing proposals often need help from SMEs. Having to wait for your teammates’ busy schedules means more moving parts and more effort. With an AI proposal management system, you can offload this work to a tool. It has access to all your SME’s shared knowledge. A single knowledge source will answer questions about products, processes, and internal policies without ever needing to loop in a human.

No More Friday Night RFPs

One of the most common things we hear from sales teams is that AI killed the “nightmare RFP” problem. You know the one: a 200-row questionnaire that shows up at 4pm on a Friday with a Monday deadline. With automation, you upload it and review the output on Monday morning. The weekend stays intact.

It’s Friday. You’re looking forward to the weekend.

You open your email and find that the sales team has dropped a 200-row questionnaire on you that needs to be submitted early next week.

Do you prefer to:

a. Cancel your weekend plans and fill this thing out.

b. Hand it off to a robot and review the output on Monday.

The answer is obvious. Some of the most common praise we hear from sales teams is that with automation, users no longer worry about the last minute “nightmare RFP.”

A Streamlined Workflow from Drafting to Submission

One common theme we hear from users is that their manual workflow is too complicated. Manual bid processes have a lot of steps and a lot of room for things to go sideways.

AI proposal automation cuts the process down to something more predictable. Receive the questionnaire, upload it, review the AI-generated answers, tag a teammate for final sign-off, and submit. Fewer moving parts means fewer things that can go wrong. 

Will AI Replace Proposal Managers?

It’s highly unlikely that AI will replace sales jobs. But the job will look different.

The concern makes sense. Automation has replaced jobs in a lot of industries, and it’s hard not to wonder if bid management is next. But the tasks that AI handles well are mostly the ones that bid managers already find tedious: searching through documents, writing boilerplate answers, formatting responses, tracking down information.

The parts that still require a person are the ones that actually matter most. Understanding the client’s priorities. Knowing which parts of your proposal need to be emphasized. Catching answers that are technically correct but miss the point. Making judgment calls about what to include and what to leave out.

AI can generate a first draft fast. A good bid manager can turn that draft into something that actually wins.

What’s more likely to happen is that teams start doing more with the same number of people. Instead of spending two days on one proposal, a bid manager can review four proposals in that same window. The job shifts toward quality control and strategy rather than raw production.

The teams that probably have more to worry about are the ones that ignore these tools while their competitors start using them to respond faster and take on more opportunities.

So, is automating Bid Management worth it?

For most teams, yes. The time savings are real, the stress reduction is real, and the ability to take on more opportunities without burning people out is genuinely valuable.

The concerns around accuracy and control are also real, and they are worth taking seriously. The answer is not to ignore them. Instead, you must build review steps into your process so a human is always checking the output before it goes to a client.

AI works best in bid management when it handles the drafting and research. A skilled person should handle the strategy and final review. That combination tends to produce better proposals faster than either approach on its own.

Bid management automation tools are already being used to streamline workflows. You are going from point A to point B with predictable inputs and outputs. There are fewer moving parts, people, and processes involved. While there are valid concerns about using AI or automation tools for RFP responses, we are hearing that the immediate benefits significantly outweigh the risks.
Try it out for yourself.