AI in Bid Writing: The risk, the reality, and how to get it right

Bid volumes are rising and timelines are shrinking, but buyers are scrutinising AI-generated submissions harder than ever, leaving suppliers caught between pressure to move faster and the risk of damaging their reputation. Carsten Schaltz (Co-founder and CPO) and Lucy Matthews (Senior Account Executive) break down what the policy landscape actually says, how buyers are really responding, and what responsible AI use looks like in practice, closing with a live walkthrough of Bid Studio.

• PPN017 explicitly states that AI use is not prohibited during the commercial process. Buyers can ask for disclosure, but that information cannot affect how bids are evaluated.
• The real risk isn't using AI but not using it efficiently. Generic, unsubstantiated responses were always marked down; AI just makes them faster to produce, which is why buyers are sharpening their scrutiny.
• Three principles separate a bid that wins from one that gets filtered out: grounded in evidence, tailored not generic, and human in the loop.
• AI detection tools exist but are notoriously unreliable. The more useful question is whether your submission is specific to the buyer, backed by evidence, and commercially coherent.
• Generic AI tools can offer a baseline productivity lift but struggle with bid-specific workflows, and the editing required often offsets the time saved.
• Stotles Bid Studio embeds those three principles into the product, from cited bid/no bid reports and buyer intelligence to drafted responses built from your own content library.