In August 2024, Lohfeld Consulting sponsored a LinkedIn ballot asking respondents, “Are you maximizing the advantages of your AI/GenAI implementation?” All through the previous 12 months, we have now seen the usage of AI within the bid and proposal business develop and change into ubiquitous. So, we determined to ask the query once more in September 2025 to find out if there was a distinction. Desk 1 lists the survey outcomes from 117 respondents.
Desk 1: Are you Maximizing the Good thing about Your AI/GenAI Implementation?
| Survey says…. | 2024 | 2025 |
| Exceeding expectations | 10% | 21% |
| Assembly most wants | 10% | 22% |
| Room for enchancment | 42% | 46% |
| Not assembly expectations | 38% | 11% |
Key Findings
Sharp Decline in Failures: In 2024, 38% of respondents reported that AI was not assembly expectations. By 2025, that quantity had plummeted to simply 11%. This means that organizations have change into extra refined of their use of AI, transferring past experimental pilots to extra structured and built-in use instances.
Rising Success Tales: The variety of respondents reporting that AI exceeded expectations grew from 10% to 21%. Whereas nonetheless a minority, this improve demonstrates that groups investing strategically in AI are incomes good returns.
Persistent Center Floor: The biggest group consists of those that see room for enchancment, rising from 42% to 46%. This displays the truth that whereas AI instruments are bettering, challenges persist in areas resembling textual content era capabilities, workflow integration, and person coaching.
Features in “Assembly Wants”: The proportion of respondents who mentioned AI is assembly most wants doubled from 10% to 21%. This means extra groups are stabilizing their AI implementations.
How Can We Enhance the Implementation of AI Use?
With almost 50% of respondents indicating there may be room for enchancment, listed below are six ideas for maximizing the implementation of AI/GenAI.
1. Determine the Proper Use Instances: AI ought to be utilized the place it provides essentially the most worth, resembling draft content material era, query improvement, and threat evaluation. Keep away from stretching it into areas the place buyer perception and strategic considering are important. Click on right here for a listing of fifty use instances to use to your AI/GenAI implementation.
2. Put money into Workforce Coaching: Present structured coaching on immediate engineering, evaluator expectations, and power capabilities. Lohfeld Consulting provides a category, GenAI for Proposal Professionals, that takes you past merely working a device—it teaches college students methods to conduct seize and proposal actions utilizing GenAI by means of hands-on actions. Moreover, well-trained customers are way more more likely to produce evaluator-ready content material and keep away from the pitfalls of “AI Converse.”
3. Set up Guardrails for Accuracy and Safety: AI can introduce dangers if unchecked. Implement clear insurance policies for fact-checking, safeguarding delicate knowledge, and imposing compliance. This ensures output stays reliable and safe.
4. Combine AI into Proposal Workflows: AI works greatest when aligned with confirmed workflows. Embedding AI into RFP analyses, query era, threat mitigation, and high quality management builds evaluator confidence.
5. Foster Human-AI Collaboration: Place AI as a companion, not a alternative. Encourage SMEs, writers, and managers to make use of AI to speed up their work whereas retaining possession of technique, storytelling, and buyer alignment.
Lastly, monitor time saved, high quality enhancements, and win charges from AI-driven efforts. Usually assessing your return on funding (ROI) permits management to make knowledgeable choices about scaling or refining the usage of AI/GenAI.
Conclusion
The outcomes of our survey present simply how far the bid and proposal business has are available in harnessing AI/GenAI and the way a lot alternative nonetheless lies forward. With fewer groups struggling, extra exceeding expectations, and the bulk looking for enhancements, one factor is obvious: success is dependent upon structured processes, sensible coaching, and confirmed steering.
At Lohfeld Consulting, we assist organizations flip AI potential into measurable outcomes—from seize and proposal providers to focused coaching applications that construct lasting expertise. In case your workforce needs to maneuver its AI implementation from “room for enchancment” to “exceeding expectations,” allow us to enable you to get there. Discover our providers and enroll in our coaching courses to maximise your ROI.
Related Data
By Brenda Crist, Vice President at Lohfeld Consulting Group, MPA, CPP APMP Fellow
Lohfeld Consulting Group has confirmed outcomes specializing in serving to corporations create successful captures and proposals. Because the premier seize and proposal providers consulting agency targeted completely on authorities markets, we offer professional help to authorities contractors in Seize Planning and Technique, Proposal Administration and Writing, Seize and Proposal Course of and Infrastructure, and Coaching. Within the final 3 years, we’ve supported over 550 proposals successful greater than $170B for our purchasers—together with the High 10 authorities contractors. Lohfeld Consulting Group is your “go-to” seize and proposal supply! Begin successful by contacting us at www.lohfeldconsulting.com and be part of us on LinkedIn, Fb, and YouTube(TM).