To AI or not to AI? Navigating tendering and AI tools

Everyone is talking about it, and everyone has an opinion on it. Importantly, a lot of people are also using it. But when is it appropriate to use AI? And is it even helpful for tender writing? In this month’s Tender Plus masterclass, we’ll cover the pros and cons of using AI for tendering.

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming a hot topic in the world of tender writing, sparking plenty of debate about its usefulness and reliability. In this blog post, we explore when and how AI tools can help you with tenders, where they add the most value, and what their pitfalls are. 

AI for understanding

In theory, AI is an excellent telling tool. Ask it to tell you about something and it will give you comprehensive feedback, often providing additional details you didn’t realise you wanted. Because of this, AI can function as a useful aid when reading through tender documents, and in my opinion, this is where it shines brightest. An AI like Copilot can be asked a simple question, such as, “When is this application due?” and it will return information on not just the due date, but also the day and time, and can even provide information on what time in your time zone the application is due. This is dependent on what information is available in the document you’re looking at, though Copilot is capable of looking through additional items such as emails, the internet or other documents in your SharePoint to gather further information for you, if you ask it to do so.

AI can also be asked to provide a summary of sections or the entirety of complex documents, helping you to quickly grasp the meaning of questions asked in tender documents. It is rapid and presents this information in an understandable way. This can help you to create more targeted and specific answers that increase your chances of winning.

Back to that ‘in theory’ caveat though. AI is great for all of the above, when it works, but it can be hit or miss. Half the time, you’ll be provided with fantastic, robust information, and you will have no issues asking for Copilot to draw from multiple sources to perform its miracles. The rest of the time, it could give me half of what you needed, missing important details, and refuse to draw information from accessible documents on SharePoint. Is AI great for understanding? Sure! Is it reliable? Not so much.

AI for doing

AI can also come in handy when it comes to doing things… in theory. Once again, issues with reliability and consistency rear their head. Depending on what you plan to do with it, however, it may still be capable of speeding up your processes and increasing overall efficiency. 

The most well-known feature of AI is its ability to create written content, which can be useful in tender writing, to a point. A first draft concocted by an AI can be a useful starting point for those with a phobia of the blank page, but this is where a human is best positioned to take over. Continuous iteration of this draft with an AI will not help you to target the client’s needs and your win themes, as AI doesn’t know how to do this at a professional level. The human element is a necessity here to ensure the response covers all the required themes. 

This is the same when it comes to asking AI to write emails or create tables in Excel. It speeds up both processes, and in the case of emails, can create solid content that may only require minor revisions. Of course, this is only when it works. However, AI will just as often create incorrect tables as it will correct ones, causing frustration you attempt to refine its creation into something useful. 

The shortcomings

Beyond the problems of consistent performance, there are other significant issues that anyone getting involved with AI must know about. Confidentiality, for starters. While the paid version of Copilot will keep your data secure, other versions of AI, as well as the free version of Copilot, are not confidential and, as such, should not have confidential information entered into them. Doing so is effectively the same as putting that information on the internet for everyone to see. AI also suffers from bias in that it will pick up on biases in the material it learns from. It will also hallucinate, which is a fancy way to say it gets things wrong sometimes. For these reasons, it is important you check the output of your AI assistant to ensure you aren’t pushing false or biased content into your tender submissions. 

AI cannot do everything for you, so don’t expect it to. When it works, however, it can be a useful aid that increases your efficiency and provides much-needed tender support, but when it doesn’t, it can be more hassle than it’s worth.

The Client

Tender Plus was engaged by a business specialising in traffic management equipment hire and smart systems. Their focus on creating and maintaining a positive customer experience and their commitment to distributing high quality equipment has led to rapid growth for their business, which they are eager to nurture. 

The Need

Having unsuccessfully tendered for a position on a state-wide panel in the previous year, this business engaged Tender Plus to assist them in not only creating a comprehensive and competitive submission this year, but to help them improve their approach toward tenders moving forward. As they are keen to expand their business they sought the support of our tender specialists to provide insight and guidance on best practice for this and future tenders.

The How

To support this business in creating a robust submission, Tender Plus was engaged to provide the following services:

• Analysis of the tender request and advice to ensure compliance
• Assistance with content development through professional advice and writing, and
• Strategic reviews of content against the tender requirements to deliver on consistency, comprehensiveness and compliance.

The Outcome

Early communication facilitated the rapid delegation of responsibilities and confirmation of expectations and deadlines. Frequent collaboration with all personnel involved from this point onward paved the way for the smooth development of content according to feedback generated from strategic reviews and in line with agreed dates. As a result, our client was able to submit a highly developed and competitive tender.