AI in bid writing: why getting to a first draft quicker misses the point

There’s a phrase I keep hearing in conversations about AI and bid writing, and it’s infuriating me. The phrase is ‘We can help you get to a first draft quicker. On the surface this sounds harmless, or even really helpful. After all, who doesn’t want to save time, especially in bid world? In a deadline-driven profession like bid writing, quicker, more efficient anything feels like a win. 

But the more I hear this phrase, the more frustrated I’m becoming. Because this idea that one of the primary goals of AI in bids is to generate a first draft faster is not just wrong, I believe it’s actively damaging. This phrase reflects a deep misunderstanding of what good bid writing involves. It reduces one of the most complex and valuable stages of the process to a sprint for words on the page. And most frustratingly, it’s reinforcing the flawed belief that the thinking part of writing, planning, structuring and decision-making is dispensable.

Fast isn’t the problem, but shallow is 

Let me be clear: I’m not against efficiency. I love streamlined processes because I want to work smart when I’m developing bid content for clients. I actively use and advocate for tools, including AI, that reduce duplication, surface better content more quickly and help me work strategically. But getting to a first draft quickly is not the same as working smart – I actually think it’s the opposite. The rush to get to a first draft shortcuts the most important, critical part of any proposal development – the thinking. When I’m working on bids, the writing phase is just one part of a bigger, structured workflow, and it’s never the place we start. 

Quality proposals are built before they are written 

Here’s how I see things. The foundations of a winning bid are laid in three stages, none of which involve writing a single full sentence:

1. Win theme development

This isn’t about picking a few headlines with matching icons and moving on. Developing win themes should be a facilitated process to interrogate the client’s needs, examine what the tender documents are really telling us, bring insight from the capture phase, and map all of this intelligence onto our own strengths. We identify differentiators, address weaknesses, and prioritise and evidence the messaging that will matter most to the client.

2. Storyboarding and answer planning

Following tender launch, we will build storyboards with question owners and contributors. Storyboards aren’t just outlines; they are a critical first step in bid response governance because they help us make decisions about the big strategic questions: What is the client asking us? What do they want to hear? What is this question really about? What is our solution for this section? Then we go granular, considering headings, content, bullet points, evidence and examples. Every single element should be fully thought through and agreed by senior bid stakeholders before the writing even starts. 

3. Writing prompts and style guidance

We are then ready to write, but we aren’t throwing words at the page. Great bid teams develop writing style guides that set out specific instructions for writers, including tone of voice, narrative expectations and formatting rules. This ensures every draft aligns with the agreed messaging and stays consistent across the document. Soon, I expect to see writing style guides in the form of AI prompts that will be loaded into software at the start of the bid process. 

Only after this structured, collaborative thinking process do we move into writing. And when we do, the writing is faster, but more importantly, better.

Skipping the thinking creates rework, risk and retrofits

The problem with rushing to a first draft isn’t just that it shortchanges the planning. It creates a false sense of progress. Too often, a ‘quick draft’ gets presented as 80% done, when it’s actually just 20% thought-through. The team breathes a sigh of relief, until reviewers realise the content doesn’t align to the strategy, client requirements or win themes. I call this ‘drivel’ for short. 

Then the retrofitting starts. Whole sections need to be rewritten. Key messages and win themes are bolted on. Reviewers get frustrated, stretched SMEs disengage because they are being asked to revisit what they thought they had already got off their desk. None of this is efficient and it’s avoidable chaos that stems directly from a culture that values speed over quality thinking, and treats writing as an execution task, rather than the outcome of a strategic process.

AI should support thinking, not short-circuit it

I’m not anti-AI. I’m actually a huge advocate and think that AI can and should play a powerful role in transforming how we work in bids. But not by churning out fast drafts.

Instead, we should be using AI to support the stages that matter most:

• Helping bid writers and bid leads to facilitate better win theme sessions 
• Generating intelligent prompts during storyboarding, that will create more precise first drafts that help to communicate the story 
• Capturing and organising SME input 
• Applying a consistent writing style across all of the written sections. 

For me, this is where the real value of AI lies, not in cutting corners, but in raising the overall quality of the work from the earliest stages. If AI can help us achieve clarity faster, with a better structure and alignment, then let’s embrace it. But generating a ‘draft’ with none of those things in place is like setting off on a very long journey with no map. You’ll get somewhere, but it won’t be the destination you’d hoped for. 

Rushing leads to copy-paste thinking, and clients spot it a mile off 

There’s another consequence to this rush-to-draft culture: it encourages people to reuse old content instead of thinking through new solutions. If the goal is speed, why not just pull in a section from a similar bid? Why not search your content library and patch something together? I’ve lost count of the times someone has said in a storyboarding session, “We wrote something similar to this for XX bid – let’s just find that.” That approach saves time, but it doesn’t create robust, winning responses. 

Clients can spot copy-paste responses a mile off, because they are vague, generic, and fail to reflect the specifics of the opportunity. They don’t feel personal or persuasive – basically they don’t demonstrate real understanding and don’t answer the key question: What will you do for me, on this project, in this context?

Winning bids come from teams who take the time to engage with that question, and who use every stage of the process to build a response that’s tailored, compelling and strategically aligned.

Let’s aim for better, not just faster

This isn’t just a professional frustration for me, it’s also personal. I believe in bid writing as a craft, not just a task that we need to grit our teeth and get through. I also believe that the role of bid writers should be to facilitate better thinking across the team, not just produce quicker content.

When I hear people talk about AI as a way to ‘get to the first draft quicker,’ I cringe, because I think we are sending the wrong message, especially to junior writers, bid stakeholders and clients who don’t fully understand the goal of responses being the final step in a process of facilitated, high-quality thinking. We shouldn’t be teaching people to write fast; we should be enabling them to think well and better.

If we want to win more bids, let’s stop racing to the first draft. Let’s start designing and implementing better processes. Let’s use AI to support structure, strategy and storytelling. Let’s build proposals that reflect real insight, not recycled content.

Because in the end, the goal isn’t faster words, it’s actually better work.

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