How to Create a Proposal Style Guide Using AI

A proposal style guide is an overlooked yet powerful tool. Teams often view style guides as basic writing aids to ensure consistency, but they are far more strategic. Today’s evaluators face overwhelming workloads, tighter timelines, and increasing reliance on AI-assisted tools to assess compliance and responsiveness—so in this environment, consistency alone is no longer enough. Proposal style guides must drive alignment with RFP language, reduce unnecessary explanations, and make compliance and responsiveness unmistakable to both human reviewers and machines.

The Rationale for Using a Proposal Style Guide

Proposal professionals have always known that consistency matters. What has changed is why it matters and how much.

• Style Guides Facilitate Evaluator Comprehension: Evaluators read hundreds of pages for a given request for proposal (RFP). A proposal style guide helps writers use the government’s own language and mirror RFP terminology, acronyms, and “buzz words.” It also helps present ideas in familiar structures and patterns. When evaluators see their terms used correctly and consistently, comprehension improves and so does their confidence in the offeror.
• Style Guides Save Page Real Estate: Style guides help teams avoid redundant explanations by aligning terminology, resulting in fewer words, more precise meanings, and greater impact.
• Style Guides Support AI-Based Compliance Reviews: AI is increasingly used to evaluate proposals. When AI tools scan proposals for compliance and responsiveness, they look for exact terminology matches, clear requirement–response relationships, and consistent language tied to RFP sections. A proposal style guide makes compliance easier for both humans and machines to identify.

The Most Important Elements of a Proposal Style Guide

An effective style guide is practical, not academic. At a minimum, it should include five elements:

• Customer and Contract Terminology: The style guide should identify what to call the customer (e.g., “the Government,” “DOE,” “OCIO”), prohibited terms (e.g., “guarantee,” “all,” and “ensure”), and how to refer to the contract, task orders, and deliverables.
• Acronyms and Defined Terms: The style guide should identify RFP-specific acronyms and their approved usage, first-use rules, and terms that must not be altered or rebranded.
• Voice, Tone, and Point of View: Address third person vs. first person, active vs. passive voice, and the tone (formal, neutral, or evaluator-focused).
• Sentence and Paragraph Rules: The style guide should specify rules for creating sentences and paragraphs, such as one requirement per sentence, one idea per paragraph, or preferred sentence length and structure.
• Compliant Language: The style guide should recommend when to use “shall,” “will,” “may,” or “must,” how to phrase commitments vs. approaches, and required cross-reference conventions.

How AI Helps Create Better Proposal Style Guides

AI excels at pattern recognition, synthesis, and consistency—exactly what proposal style guides require. Instead of starting from scratch, proposal teams can use AI to:

• Extract key terminology directly from the RFP
• Identify high-frequency terms evaluators expect to see, like the customer name
• Build glossaries, crosswalks, and writing rules faster
• Identify how to enforce consistency across multiple authors and volumes
• Surface proven language patterns and stylistic norms
• Flag conflicting terminology, acronyms, or naming conventions
• Recommend standardized phrasing
• Align tone, voice, and formality level with customer culture and procurement expectations

Consider continuously updating your style guide as the proposal evolves, rather than treating it as static.

Sample AI Prompts for Creating a Proposal Style Guide

On your next proposal, attach a copy of your RFP and the bullets listed above, and ask AI to help you create a proposal style guide. Provide your AI platform with specific guidance to generate a style guide for each bullet, using prompts like those listed below:

• Prompt #1: Extract RFP Terminology. “Review this RFP and list all customer, agency, and technical terms that should be used verbatim in a proposal response.”
• Prompt #2: Define Customer Naming Rules. “Based on this RFP, recommend the correct terms proposal writers should use to refer to the customer, contracting office, and stakeholders.”
• Prompt #3: Build a Proposal Writing Style Guide. “Create a proposal-specific writing style guide based on this RFP, including terminology rules, tone, sentence structure, and compliance language.”
• Prompt #4: Support AI-Based Compliance. “Identify terms and phrases an AI compliance tool would likely search for when evaluating responsiveness to this RFP.”

Conclusion: Style Guides Are a Win Strategy

In modern GovCon proposals, a style guide is no longer optional. It is a force multiplier that improves evaluator comprehension, preserves precious page space, and positions proposals for success in both human and AI-driven reviews. By using AI to create and maintain proposal style guides, teams can move beyond last-minute clean-up and toward intentional, evaluator-centric proposal writing.

If your team is ready to strengthen proposal quality, consistency, and competitiveness, contact Lohfeld Consulting.

Relevant Information

• How to Increase Proposal Writing Speed by 25%

• How to Overcome Four AI Risks in Proposal Writing Now

• How to Secure Proposal Assets in the Age of Agentic AI

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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).