AI's impact on bids and proposals jobs

On the 23rd of October 2023, specialist bid management recruiter, David Bremner, hosted a webinar in collaboration with AutogenAI. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are becoming increasingly popular across every industry. Many are asking ‘how do professionals adapt to use AI in their roles?’ In this webinar, David explored this topic in the context of the bid management world.

David spoke to Founder and CEO of AutogenAI, Sean Williams, about the future of AI within the bids industry. Sean has led research, policy, business development and operations for some of the largest, most successful public service providers. After twenty years in outsourced government procurement, he founded Corndel, the fastest growing tech and management training business in the UK before launching AutogenAI.

Watch the webinar for a demonstration of the software and keep reading for our key takeaways from their conversation.

About AutogenAI

AutogenAI bring the latest advances in artificial intelligence, specifically in natural language processing, to the task of producing winning tenders and proposals. AutogenAI is developing unique ways of interfacing with commercially available generative pre-trained transformers to produce compelling, grammatical, bid text.

“Our software is a tool for humans, is built to speed up humans and facilitate the writing of winning bids.”

With customers across the globe, the business is growing rapidly. With new investment, they are continuing to enhance the software. This allows Bid Writers and teams to write bids faster, better and, ultimately, win more. 

AI solutions

Businesses across a number of industries have implemented AI powered tools into their bid teams. So, what benefits have they seen? Sean shared a number of points, including:

• Efficiency
• Competitiveness
• Reduced bias

How does AI speed up the bidding process?

Sean shared that when they first developed AutogenAI, they started by looking at improving the Bid Writer’s workflow. 

Every writing process starts with a question that you need to find the answer to. You might look for those answers in your intellectual property. For example, previous bids, tenders, proposals, plus your policies, your procedures and your annual reports. Bid Writers will then use information from external sources to add to the bid.

Where this takes a long time for an individual to complete, AutogenAI automates this search process. The software searches your property library and the internet to find resources to support the bid writing process. There is also a generative AI element that will create new ideas.

“What artificial intelligence is very good at is coming up with ideas quickly. What it doesn't have is judgment.”

Once the AI has generated this information, the Bid Writer must judge which elements they include and how to structure the narrative.

What competitive advantages does AI bring to bid teams

Sean shared that many bids have seen success with the use of AutogenAI. They have often beaten the competition due to the speed at which they’re being written.

Traditionally, other bid teams might take four weeks to get a first draft prepared. However, with the support of generative AI tools, a first draft can be written in a matter of minutes. This allows the team to spend more time on the value-adding activities.

Addressing concerns around the use of AI

As with every new technology, some have concerns around how artificial intelligence will impact the industry. David asked Sean to address some of these concerns.

Data security

Many businesses are concerned about data protection when it comes to AI. The machine learning algorithms create a number of risks around business security. 

In order to remain secure, Sean warned against the use of any publicly available AI tools, such as ChatGPT. 

To securely use AI, you need a secure language engine which is securely hosted and where your data is completely segregated. This will ensure that your data is only used for training your language engine and not used for training anybody else's. You can achieve this with tools, such as AutogenAI.

Job security

From an employee perspective, many are concerned about their job security with the rapid introduction of artificial intelligence. 

However, as we’ve touched upon in previous events, wellbeing is an increasingly important topic within the bid community. With many bid teams working to tight deadlines, it can be tricky for some to maintain a good work-life balance. Sean hopes that with AI speeding up the bid writing process, Bids and Proposal Managers will be able to improve their wellbeing at work.

“Tools need to be used responsibly.”

Plus, Sean was keen to re-iterate that AI tools need to be used responsibly. Having that Bid Manager to use the tool and work with it is crucial to ensure that compelling bids can be delivered on. 

We’re likely to see new job titles created, however, such as AI-assisted Bid Writers. Those that do use AI in their role will be able to focus on the value-added work in their job role.

Content facts and accuracy

There have been a lot of conversations around the accuracy of AI and how factually correct the content it produces is. This is just one reason why it’s important to have experienced employees in place to use the tools.

Sean also shared that there are ways to “ground” large language models. This includes giving them access to your previous bids, tenders and proposals, as well as the internet and other factchecking sources. This allows the AI to advance, learn and grow.

A big thank you to AutogenAI

We want to give a big thank you to AutogenAI and Sean for their time in creating such an informative webinar. If you’re interested in learning more about their software, be sure to watch Sean’s live demonstration and get in touch.

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