Why winning bids will use both generative and agentic AI

Introduction

AI is reshaping how organisations approach bidding. Most bid teams are now familiar with using generative AI to create content, summarise documents, or offer drafting suggestions.

But another type of AI is emerging as equally critical – agentic AI. This lesser-known cousin isn’t focused on content generation. Instead, it performs problem-solving tasks, like shredding complex RFPs or assessing compliance against a set of requirements.

Organisations having the most success with AI implementation don’t choose between these approaches; they combine them. For companies serious about improving their win rate and reducing the manual burden, understanding and integrating both types is essential.

Understanding the two types of AI in bids:

We’ve got to know the capabilities of several platforms such as AutogenAI and Visible Thread. They both offer hybrid solutions that combine both types of AI, enabling teams to rapidly interpret, draft, and refine bid documents in one ecosystem.

Other tools gaining strong traction in defence and high-assurance environments, either through AI agents, content automation, or both, include Rohirrim (RohanRFP), Loopio and Qvidian.

An eight-step guide to choosing a tool with the right combination of AI types

Adopting an AI tool to support your bid team is likely to be a wise decision, but it’s still an investment, and you will want to be diligent in choosing one with a combination of features that best suits your business. We suggest you run a task-level pilot to assess the ability of AI tools to deal with both agentic and generative AI tasks against your specific needs. This sounds daunting, but need not be overly difficult if you break it down into stages, as follows:

1. Map your processes

Identify which parts of your workflow are narrative-heavy (response sections, win themes) versus structured and repeatable (compliance checks, RFP shredding).

2. Choose your ‘crash test dummy’ bid

Select a past bid that is typical of those you expect in the future. One that is relatively simple will be ideal, but it’s more important that it is representative of the work you expect to do.

3. Select your tests

Select several tests from the processes at 1 above to put the candidate AI tool through its paces:

• For narrative tasks, you could seek to develop a set of win themes, a draft scored section and/or a pass/fail section.
• For rules-based tasks, you could ask it to shred the RFP into a list of ‘must’, ‘should’ and ‘could’ criteria. You could also ask it to score drafts produced when you responded to the bid for real.
• Find someone to help you review your results, for example, your best red team reviewer for the generative output and your most diligent proposal manager to judge the effectiveness of a shred task.

4. Feed the beast

You will need to upload your RFP into the tool, along with any contextual information such as white papers, your win strategy (assuming producing it isn’t one of your tests) and background information such as relevant past bids and technical data on your solution. This sounds like a lot, but for your assessment, it doesn’t need everything on your server. But select some data for both types of AI to draw on. Many tools allow you to decide whether or not you want it to draw on internet information.

5. Run the test tasks

Work through your selected tasks. You will probably have had to do a little training to understand how to use the functions, but our experience is that most of the proprietary tools are intuitive and backed up by good training resources. Top tip: If you don’t know how to do something, ask the generative function of the tool for an answer. For example, prompt it with: “How can a user of BidGenAI score a draft section for compliance?”

6. Assess effectiveness

Ask your reviewers to rate the results for estimated time saved and the quality and accuracy of the drafts it produces. You may also want to ask your user(s) to rate the tool for ease of use.

7. Do it again and compare the results

The results mean little without a comparison against previous manual methods or other AI tools that are under consideration. You will have a stronger case to justify your eventual selection (and its investment) if you do.

8. Don’t expect the results to stay the same

The functionality of these tools is updated very frequently, often weekly. When the licences come up for renewal, run the tests again and see if you are still using the best tool for your business needs.

Closing thoughts

Pairing generative and agentic AI isn’t just about modernising your bid process; it’s about competing effectively in a market where speed, compliance and quality are non-negotiable. The companies that understand this distinction and act on it will not only write better bids, they’ll win more of them.

Article published: July 2025