Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be a powerful assistant during the bidding process, but many expect it to be the silver bullet that will churn out high quality, polished bid responses with little to no effort. This month we’ve seen newly published Public Sector tenders requiring bidders to submit declarations about the use of AI in their bid submission so you need to make sure to check the output of content and don’t simply copy, paste and submit it.
AI isn’t here to replace bid professionals and subject matter experts, but it WILL save time, improve consistency, and unlock new ways to present content to speed up the time it takes you and your business to create a high quality first draft bid response.
There are many use cases for AI in bidding but based on our experience of using it as a bid consultancy, as individual bid professionals from across a variety of industries and a software development business, we have found that the best place to start is with creating draft bid content. Find out more in our previous article on Leveraging AI in Public Sector Bidding: Why It Matters and How to Start to get more information.
Prompting – What is it, and how is it different to ‘Googling’?
Great question, they look similar on the surface (“I type something in, and I get an answer”), but prompting and Googling are actually quite different in how they work and what you get back:
Googling
- How it works: You type keywords, Google matches them against web pages, and shows you ranked links.
- What you get: A list of sources you then must sift through, interpret, and piece together.
- Strength: Breadth of information, access to the latest data, direct links to authoritative sources.
- Limitation: You do the work, Google doesn’t “explain” or “combine” for you, unless you click into each result.
Prompting
- How it works: You write a prompt (a request in human language), and the AI uses its training data + reasoning to generate a direct response.
- What you get: An answer that’s already summarised, contextualised, or even tailored to your tone/format (e.g. a sales pitch, email draft, or step-by-step guide).
- Strength: Personalisation, synthesis, and flexibility (e.g. “explain this as if I’m 10 years old,” or “turn this into a LinkedIn post”).
- Limitation: Without live web access, AI may be outdated or miss niche, very recent details, though it can reason and reframe better than a search engine.
Think of it like this:
- Googling is like going to a massive library and pulling books off the shelves yourself.
- Prompting is like sitting with a knowledgeable librarian who reads the books for you, explains them, and even helps you write your essay in your preferred style.
Just like Googling, and the famous phrase about ‘something in, something out’ prompting is only as good as the questions you ask it.
With that in mind, here are some easy-to-use examples to get you started with using AI prompts in your bidding:
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Rewriting Content to Fit Word Count
The thorn in the side of any bid professional – word counts! Sometimes responses need to be longer (to add detail) or shorter (to meet strict word limits). AI can help expand or summarise content while keeping the key points intact.
Example prompts:
- “Rewrite the following response in under 250 words without losing any critical information.”
- “Expand this 150-word draft into around 400 words by adding more detail and examples.”
- “Make this response more concise and remove repetition, keeping it under 200 words.”
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Rewriting for Different Buyers or Sectors
Often, you’ll need to tailor existing answers to suit a different buyer (e.g., NHS vs Local Authority) or sector (healthcare vs education). AI can quickly adapt terminology and emphasis using your prompting.
Example prompts:
- “Rewrite this answer for an NHS audience, emphasising patient outcomes and healthcare compliance.”
- “Adapt this response for a local council instead of a hospital trust, focusing on community impact and value for money.”
- “Change all references from ‘university’ to ‘hospital trust’ and adjust examples to reflect healthcare settings.”
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Changing Style or Tone of Voice
Bids often need a specific style – professional, persuasive, or easy-to-read. AI can take your existing text and adjust the tone to suit; it will however change from your company tone of voice in your past bid responses.
Example prompts:
- “Rewrite this response in a more persuasive, sales-driven style.”
- “Simplify this technical answer so it’s easy to understand for a non-expert audience.”
- “Make this response sound more formal and compliant with public sector tendering language.”
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Using Existing Responses to Answer New Questions
Instead of starting from scratch, you can repurpose past answers. AI can combine, reshape, or reframe content to address a new question.
Example prompts:
- “Write me a 250 word responses to answer this new question: ‘Describe how you monitor and improve service delivery.’”
- “Combine these two past responses into one coherent answer that addresses the new requirement.”
- “Take this old response and highlight the sustainability elements to answer the new question on environmental impact.”
- Other Practical Use Cases
- Grammar & readability check: “Polish this text to make it more professional and error-free.”
- Bid executive summaries: “Summarise this full bid response into 3 bullet points suitable for an executive summary.”
- Consistency check: “Ensure all references use ‘Bidding Limited’ instead of ‘Bidding Ltd’.”
Key Tips for Beginners
- Always fact-check: AI can make mistakes – you are the expert.
- Feed it your content: The better your input, the better the output.
- Iterate: Don’t accept the first version – refine with follow-up prompts.
- Protect sensitive data: Don’t paste confidential client information into public AI tools.
There are limitations to general purpose AI tools which is why Virtual Bid Team was created by our bid team, for bid teams. We’ve already spent hours getting frustrated with hallucinated content from ChatGPT, CoPilot and other AI tools which is why we created our own. If you want to see how your team can create high quality first draft responses in half the time then speak to our team today to find out how AI can be best used in your bidding.
