How AI Is Changing Proposal Work Today

To better understand where AI is delivering the most value, Lohfeld Consulting asked proposal professionals on LinkedIn a simple but revealing question:

“What area of bid and proposal operations has AI had the most positive impact?”

We first posed this question in August 2024, and again 18 months later in February 2026. With 749 total responses, the results reveal not only where AI is strongest today, but how its role in proposal operations is evolving. The findings, summarized in Table 1, highlight a clear maturation in how teams apply AI throughout the proposal lifecycle.

Table 1: Areas of Impact Where AI Has Had the Most Positive Impact

Where AI Makes the Biggest Impact

Drafting Content Still Leads but Is No Longer the Whole Story. Drafting content remained the clear leader in both surveys, with 66% of responses in 2024 and 58% in 2026. While still dominant, the decline is telling. AI-assisted drafting has become standard practice, no longer viewed as a breakthrough capability but as a baseline expectation. As a result, proposal professionals are shifting their focus from whether AI can generate content to how they can apply it to capture and proposal operations.

Proposal Reviews and Scoring: Growing Trust, Smarter Use. Proposal review and scoring saw notable growth, increasing from 15% to 19%. This uptick reflects growing confidence in AI’s ability to support (not replace) human evaluation. Rather than simulating evaluators outright, AI is increasingly used to enhance reviewer efficiency and consistency, freeing human reviewers to focus on judgment, nuance, and strategy.

Brainstorming and Solutioning: A Steady Creative Partner. Brainstorming and solutioning virtually stayed the same at 12% in 2024 and 11% in 2026. This suggests teams continue to view AI as a creative partner—one that helps explore multiple approaches quickly, surface differentiators, and reframe benefits.

Compliance: Slow Growth, Cautious Adoption. Compliance increased from 7% in 2024 to 12% in 2026, signaling a cautious adoption. Teams are beginning to trust AI to parse RFPs, identify requirements, and flag potential gaps, while still relying on human oversight for final validation. This measured growth reflects the high-risk nature of compliance and the importance of accuracy, but it also points to significant future potential as tools continue to mature.

What the Results Tell Us

The results make one thing clear: AI’s role in proposal operations is expanding and becoming more sophisticated cautiously. What began primarily as a drafting accelerator is now supporting reviews, strategic thinking, and creative problem-solving. If your team is ready to expand its AI skill set or needs a proposal consultant fluent in AI-enabled proposal development, contact Lohfeld Consulting to move forward with confidence.

Relevant Information

• How to Create a Proposal Style Guide Using AI

• How Content Tagging Ends Proposal AI Chaos

• How to Increase Proposal Writing Speed by 25%

By Brenda Crist, Vice President at Lohfeld Consulting Group, MPA, CPP APMP Fellow

Lohfeld Consulting Group has proven results specializing in helping companies create winning captures and proposals. As the premier capture and proposal services consulting firm focused exclusively on government markets, we provide expert assistance to government contractors in Capture Planning and Strategy, Proposal Management and Writing, Capture and Proposal Process and Infrastructure, and Training. In the last 3 years, we’ve supported over 550 proposals winning more than $170B for our clients—including the Top 10 government contractors. Lohfeld Consulting Group is your “go-to” capture and proposal source! Start winning by contacting us at www.lohfeldconsulting.com and join us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube^(TM).