Top Generative AI Tools for RFP Responses
August 7, 2025
By
Evie Secilmis
Let’s be honest: the traditional RFP process can be a real grind. It’s a time-consuming hunt for information that pulls your most talented people away from strategic work. You spend days, sometimes weeks, digging through old documents, chasing down subject matter experts, and wrestling with version control. This is where AI completely changes the game. It’s not just about working faster; it’s about working smarter. Finding the best generative ai for rfp responses means transforming this manual marathon into a streamlined, intelligent workflow. This guide will walk you through what to look for, from must-have features to non-negotiable security, so you can reclaim your team’s time and focus on winning.
Key Takeaways
- Look beyond speed and focus on features that improve quality: The best tools offer intelligent knowledge management and seamless collaboration, freeing your team to concentrate on the strategy and customization that actually wins deals.
- Demand non-negotiable security and data privacy: Your company's data is a critical asset. Choose a platform with verifiable security certifications, like SOC 2, and a clear policy that your information will never be used to train public AI models.
- Successful adoption is about process, not just the platform: To get a real return on your investment, you need to build a new workflow. This means strategically organizing your content library, training your team effectively, and using analytics to continuously improve your performance.
What Should You Look for in an AI RFP Tool?
Choosing the right AI RFP tool isn't just about speed; it's about finding a platform that improves the quality of your responses and helps you win more deals. The best tools act as a true partner to your sales team, helping you put your best foot forward every time. When you're evaluating your options, focus on these key areas to find the perfect fit for your team.
How AI Changes the RFP Process
Let’s be honest: the traditional RFP process can be a real grind. It’s a manual, time-intensive hunt for information that pulls your team away from more strategic work. AI completely flips that script. Instead of spending days digging through old documents and pinging subject matter experts, an AI-powered tool can generate a solid first draft in minutes. It works by instantly finding the most relevant information from your content library. This shift doesn't just save an incredible amount of time; it introduces consistency across all your responses and frees up your team to focus on what really matters—customizing the proposal and building a winning strategy.
Must-Have Features for Winning More Deals
When you're comparing tools, focus on the features that directly impact your ability to win. At the top of the list is a powerful AI engine that can generate high-quality, accurate drafts instantly. You also need a smart knowledge library that acts as your single source of truth, allowing the AI to pull from past RFPs, security documents, and other key content. Look for a platform that makes it easy to manage and update this information. Great collaboration features are also essential, so your team can work together in real-time to review, edit, and approve responses. Finally, ensure the tool allows for deep customization, so you can tailor every proposal to the specific client’s needs.
Why Security and Compliance Are Non-Negotiable
You’re feeding your most sensitive company information into this tool—product details, pricing, security protocols, and client data. That’s why its security can't be an afterthought. A trustworthy AI RFP tool must have robust data privacy controls and industry-standard certifications like SOC 2. Your data should be kept separate from other customers' data to prevent any cross-contamination. It’s also critical that the platform helps you manage compliance and securely share security documents with your prospects. Before you commit, dig into the provider’s security posture. A transparent company will have this information readily available, often in a detailed whitepaper or trust center.
A Breakdown of the Top AI Tools for RFP Responses
Choosing the right AI-powered RFP tool can feel overwhelming, but it really comes down to what your team needs. Are you a fast-growing startup, a mid-market company scaling its sales operations, or a large enterprise with complex security requirements? Each platform offers a different mix of features, from AI-native drafting to robust knowledge management and team collaboration.
Think of this as a tour of the top contenders. We’ll walk through what makes each tool unique, who it’s best for, and how it approaches the challenge of making RFP responses faster and more accurate. This breakdown will give you a clear picture of the landscape so you can find the solution that fits your workflow, not the other way around.
HeyIris.ai
As an AI-native platform, HeyIris.ai is designed from the ground up to streamline your entire response process. It functions as a centralized AI deal desk, helping your team confidently tackle not just RFPs, but also RFIs, SOWs, VSQs, and DDQs. The real standout is its proactive approach to information management; Iris automatically flags outdated or inconsistent information across all your connected systems, ensuring every proposal is built on accurate, up-to-date knowledge. This focus on maintaining a single source of truth helps teams generate high-quality first drafts in a fraction of the time, letting you handle more deals and improve your win rates.
Loopio
Loopio is a well-regarded platform that uses AI to help teams respond to a variety of sales questionnaires more efficiently. Its AI is designed to work alongside your team, helping you answer RFPs, RFIs, and security questionnaires without taking over the human element of the job. The platform focuses on helping people work smarter, not just faster, by assisting in the creation of high-quality, consistent answers. It’s a solid choice for teams looking for a trusted AI assistant to speed up their response workflow and manage their content library effectively.
Responsive
As the evolution of RFPIO, Responsive is a recognized tool, particularly among large companies. Its strengths lie in its powerful content library features and a wide array of integrations with other business software. It’s an established platform that has been a cornerstone for many enterprise teams looking to organize their proposal content. While it has incorporated AI into its system, it’s still adapting from its legacy roots to compete with platforms that were built with AI at their core from day one. It’s a dependable option for enterprises that prioritize deep content management capabilities.
Ombud
Ombud is another established tool in the RFP space, particularly well-suited for large companies with complex sales processes. It has since been acquired by Upland and integrated into its suite of products as Qvidian. While Ombud was known for its strong collaboration and content management features, its technology and focus have been absorbed into the Qvidian platform. For teams exploring this technology, looking directly at Qvidian will provide the most up-to-date information on its capabilities and AI-driven features.
Qvidian
As an established RFP solution for large enterprises, Qvidian has integrated AI capabilities to enhance its longstanding platform. Instead of using fully autonomous agents, it offers an AI Assistant that helps users with specific tasks like rewriting text, improving answers, and searching the content library more effectively. This makes it a good fit for organizations that want to add AI-powered assistance to their existing workflows without completely overhauling their process. It’s a practical choice for enterprise teams looking to augment their current proposal management with helpful AI features.
AutoRFP.ai
As its name suggests, AutoRFP.ai is built for speed and automation, making it a great fit for organizations that face a high volume of questionnaires. The platform uses a powerful AI engine to generate instant drafts for both RFPs and security questions, significantly cutting down the initial response time. If your team’s primary bottleneck is simply getting through a large number of incoming requests, this tool’s focus on efficiency and rapid drafting can be a game-changer. It’s designed for teams that need to prioritize quantity and speed without sacrificing quality.
Conveyor
Conveyor specializes in helping companies tackle RFPs and, most notably, security questionnaires with greater speed and accuracy. Its AI is particularly skilled at sourcing information from a wide variety of places, including your company’s public website, internal documents, and past questionnaire responses. This makes it incredibly effective at finding the right answer, no matter where it’s stored. For teams that struggle with knowledge silos, Conveyor’s AI-powered software offers a smart way to centralize information and automate responses, especially for security-heavy reviews.
Compare the Features That Actually Drive Results
When you start looking at AI RFP tools, the sheer number of features can feel overwhelming. It’s easy to get lost in buzzwords and flashy demos. But to find a tool that genuinely improves your win rate, you need to focus on the features that solve the biggest problems in your proposal process. It’s not about having the most features; it’s about having the right ones that will make a tangible difference in your day-to-day work and your bottom line.
The goal is to find a solution that fits into your team’s existing rhythm and makes everyone’s job easier—from the proposal manager to the subject matter expert. A great AI tool doesn’t just speed things up; it makes your responses smarter, more consistent, and more compelling. Think of it as adding a strategic partner to your team, one that handles the tedious work so you can focus on strategy and relationships. This shift allows your team to move from being reactive responders to proactive deal-winners. Let’s break down the core features that separate the game-changers from the gadgets, so you can identify what will truly drive results for your business.
Generate Content and Draft Responses Instantly
The most immediate benefit of an AI RFP tool is its ability to slash the time it takes to write a proposal. Instead of spending days digging for information and writing answers from scratch, top-tier tools can generate a complete first draft in minutes. For example, platforms like Conveyor and Loopio use AI to pull information from past responses and company documents to build answers for you. This speed is more than a convenience; it’s a competitive advantage. It allows your team to respond to more opportunities and dedicate more time to tailoring each proposal, ensuring every submission is high-quality and strategically sound.
Manage Your Knowledge Base with Ease
A disorganized or outdated content library is often the biggest bottleneck in the RFP process. The best AI tools tackle this head-on by transforming your knowledge base from a static folder of documents into a dynamic, intelligent system. Instead of you having to manually update Q&A pairs, the software does it for you. Some tools, like DeepRFP, use AI "agents" to manage information, while others proactively identify and flag outdated content across all your systems. This ensures that every proposal is built on the most current, accurate, and approved information, giving you confidence in every submission.
Collaborate Seamlessly with Your Team
RFPs are a team effort, and your software should reflect that. A great AI tool streamlines teamwork by making it easy to assign questions, track progress, and get input from subject matter experts (SMEs). Look for features that automatically tag the right expert for a specific question, eliminating the need to chase people down for answers. This keeps the entire process moving smoothly within a single platform, preventing version control issues and last-minute scrambles. By centralizing communication and workflows, you can create a more efficient and less stressful proposal management process for everyone involved.
Ensure Quality and Accuracy in Every Response
Speed without quality won’t win you any deals. This is why leading AI tools have built-in quality controls to ensure every response is not only fast but also accurate and polished. Some platforms analyze your writing against data from previously successful proposals to help you refine your answers. Others are designed to deliver highly accurate information, helping you create winning responses you can trust. These features act as a final check, catching errors, improving clarity, and ensuring your proposal meets all requirements. This focus on quality helps you build trust and submit a final document that truly stands out.
Integrate with Your Existing Tech Stack
An RFP tool shouldn't operate in a silo. To be truly effective, it needs to connect with the software your team already relies on every day. Seamless integrations with your CRM, like Salesforce, are critical for tracking how your RFP efforts contribute to sales results. Connections to communication tools like Slack or Teams and cloud storage like Google Drive or SharePoint are just as important. These integrations create a unified workflow, reduce manual data entry, and ensure information flows freely between systems. This makes the tool a natural extension of your current process, not another platform your team has to learn to juggle.
Customize Your Workflows and Templates
Your sales process is unique, and your RFP software should be flexible enough to support it. The ability to customize workflows and templates is essential for aligning the tool with how your team operates. Look for platforms that allow you to build custom "language engines" trained on your company’s documents or create automated workflows for specific tasks like compliance checks and risk analysis. This level of customization ensures the tool adapts to you, not the other way around. By tailoring the software to your specific needs, you can maintain your brand voice and meet industry requirements consistently, as shown in various case studies.
Breaking Down the Costs: A Guide to Pricing
Figuring out the cost of an AI RFP tool can feel a bit like solving a puzzle. Prices vary widely depending on the provider, the size of your team, and the features you need. Some tools have clear, public pricing, while others require a custom quote. The good news is there’s a solution for almost every budget, whether you're a global enterprise or a one-person consulting shop. Let’s walk through the common pricing structures so you can find the right fit for your team without any surprises.
Plans for Enterprise Teams
If you're part of a large organization that responds to hundreds of complex RFPs a year, you’ll likely be looking at an enterprise plan. These plans are typically priced on a custom basis, so you won't see a number on the website. Instead, you'll work directly with their sales team to build a package tailored to your specific needs. Expect to commit to an annual contract with a minimum number of user seats. This approach ensures you get a solution powerful enough to handle a high volume of intricate, narrative-heavy proposals for things like government contracts or major consulting projects.
Options for Mid-Market Companies
For mid-market companies, pricing tends to be more straightforward and flexible. You’ll often find public pricing pages with clear, per-user monthly or annual rates. This transparency makes it easier to budget and compare options. Some tools, however, treat their AI features as an add-on, so you might see a base fee plus an extra cost per user for AI capabilities. It’s a good idea to map out exactly which features are must-haves for your team so you can get an accurate picture of the total monthly cost before you commit. Understanding different SaaS pricing models can help you anticipate these structures.
Solutions for Small Businesses
If you’re a consultant or part of a small but mighty team, you don’t need a complicated or expensive tool. The best solutions for small businesses are affordable, easy to use, and quick to set up. You can find powerful tools for as little as $50 per month. These platforms are designed to help you produce high-quality proposals fast, without getting bogged down in a complex implementation process. They give you the speed and efficiency you need to compete with larger companies, proving that you don't need a huge budget to create winning responses.
How to Calculate Your ROI
The price tag is only one part of the equation. The real value of an AI RFP tool lies in its return on investment (ROI). Think about the hours your team spends searching for answers, writing boilerplate content, and correcting inconsistencies. An AI tool automates much of that work, freeing up your team to focus on strategy. This efficiency fundamentally changes your workflow, allowing you to respond to more RFPs with fewer resources. Many teams find that the improvements in response quality, consistency, and win rates make the software an essential part of their process. You can see how other companies have benefited by checking out a few case studies.
Watch Out for These Hidden Costs
Before you sign on the dotted line, make sure you understand the full picture. Some costs aren't listed on the pricing page. For example, consider the initial setup. It takes time and effort to gather your company data and train the AI on your content library. Some providers offer extensive support for this, while others are more hands-off. Also, be aware that not all tools offer a free trial. You may need to go through a full sales process and demo just to see the product in action, and the implementation itself can sometimes take weeks. Understanding the total cost of ownership will help you avoid any unexpected expenses down the road.
How to Get the Most Out of Your AI RFP Tool
An AI RFP tool is more than just software—it's a new way of working for your entire team. Simply buying a subscription won't automatically lead to more wins. The real value comes from thoughtful implementation and consistent use. To get the best results, you need to integrate the tool into your daily workflows, keep your content in top shape, and empower your team to use it with confidence. Think of it as building a high-performance engine for your sales process. It requires a bit of setup and maintenance, but the speed and power you get in return are well worth the effort. Here’s how you can make sure your investment pays off and turns your RFP process into a competitive advantage.
Set Up Your Tool for Success
The first step is to get your new tool properly configured for your team’s specific needs. This goes beyond just importing your existing content. A proper setup involves integrating the software with your current systems and establishing clear workflows. For instance, a powerful AI deal desk solution can automatically tag the right subject matter experts when their input is needed on a specific question, which keeps the process moving smoothly. Take the time to define user roles and permissions, ensuring everyone has the access they need without feeling overwhelmed. This initial investment of time will create a solid foundation for faster, more accurate responses down the line.
Organize Your Content Library Strategically
Your AI tool is only as smart as the information you give it. A well-organized content library is the key to generating high-quality, accurate answers for every proposal. Instead of treating it as a digital filing cabinet, think of it as a dynamic resource. Group your best-performing answers by product, service, or industry. Use clear and consistent tagging to make information easy to find. A central knowledge library allows your team to quickly pull approved content for any request, from a formal RFP to a quick question in a chat. Regularly review and update your content to remove outdated information and refine your messaging, ensuring your AI always has the best material to work with.
Track Your Performance and Improve
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. The best AI RFP tools provide analytics that give you valuable insight into your response process. Keep a close eye on key metrics like your win rate, response time, and which pieces of content are used most often. This data helps you identify bottlenecks and understand what a winning proposal looks like for your business. Some platforms even offer intelligence features that analyze your responses against data from thousands of winning bids. Using these insights allows you to continuously refine your strategy, strengthen your answers, and ultimately improve your deal volume and win rates.
Train Your Team Effectively
Technology works best when it empowers people, not replaces them. Effective team training is critical for successful adoption. Start by showing your team how the tool is designed to work with them to make their jobs easier. Hold hands-on training sessions and create a go-to resource for questions. It’s also helpful to appoint an internal champion who can offer support and encourage good habits. Set clear guidelines on how to use the AI features, including how to review and edit generated drafts to ensure they align with your company’s voice. By focusing on building confidence and sharing best practices, you’ll get your whole team on board and using the tool to its full potential.
Keeping Your Data Safe: A Closer Look at Security
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: security. Handing over your company’s sensitive information, customer data, and proprietary solutions to an AI tool can feel risky. And you’re right to be cautious. When you’re dealing with RFPs, you’re handling the very core of your business strategy. That’s why security isn’t just a feature to look for in an AI RFP tool—it’s the foundation everything else is built on. A breach or leak could be catastrophic.
Before you commit to any platform, you need to be absolutely certain that it has ironclad security protocols. This means going beyond the marketing claims and looking for concrete evidence of data protection, privacy controls, and industry compliance. Here’s what you should be asking about.
Meet Key Data Protection Standards
The first and most important question you should ask is what happens to your data. Your company’s information should never be used to train public AI models. A trustworthy platform will be explicit about this. For example, some providers make it clear that your information remains private and secure. Loopio’s AI-powered RFP software page states, "Loopio does not use your company's data or content to train its AI models." This isn't just a feature; it's a fundamental promise. Your proprietary information should be used for one purpose only: to generate responses for you. This ensures your competitive advantage stays yours.
What to Look for in Privacy Controls
Beyond a vendor’s data handling policies, look for tools that give you direct control over your information. You need the ability to manage who sees what, both internally and externally. Secure document sharing is a perfect example of a vital privacy control. A good platform makes it simple and safe to share critical documents with customers without losing control over them. This is a key feature of AI-powered RFP response software from Conveyor, which notes, "It makes it much easier and more secure to share important security documents with customers." This ensures your data stays in the right hands.
Manage and Mitigate Risk
Choosing a secure AI tool is a core part of your risk management strategy. The primary risk is a data breach, which could expose your pricing, technical solutions, or client information. A vendor’s commitment to privacy directly mitigates this. When a platform guarantees that it won't use your data for public model training, it significantly reduces your exposure. As one of the best RFP tools, DeepRFP assures users, "DeepRFP keeps your data private and doesn't use it to train public AI models." This policy is your first line of defense against potential leaks and makes the platform a more reliable partner.
Ensure You're Industry Compliant
If you operate in a regulated industry like finance, healthcare, or government, compliance is non-negotiable. Your chosen AI tool must meet specific industry standards. Look for certifications like SOC 2 or ISO 27001, as these demonstrate a vendor's commitment to upholding rigorous security practices. For instance, Conveyor is certified for security (ISO 27001) and ensures that "your data is kept separate." This level of third-party validation provides peace of mind and proves the vendor has a mature, verifiable security program in place to protect your most valuable information.
What's Next for AI in RFP Management?
AI is moving fast, and its role in the RFP process is growing every day. While today’s tools are already transforming how teams work, the future holds even more exciting possibilities. Understanding this trajectory can help you not only choose the right tool for today but also prepare your team for what’s ahead. Let's look at where the technology is now and where it's headed.
Where the Technology Stands Today
Right now, AI RFP tools are powerful assistants that handle the heavy lifting of proposal creation. Think of them less as a replacement for your team and more as a force multiplier. These platforms excel at creating consistent, detailed, and accurate responses by drawing from your knowledge base in seconds. This automation frees your team from tedious, repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on what humans do best: building client relationships, fine-tuning strategy, and making high-level decisions. The primary benefits of AI today are about reclaiming time and introducing a new level of precision to your responses, which directly impacts your ability to handle more deals without burning out.
New Capabilities on the Horizon
Looking ahead, AI is set to become more predictive and integrated. Imagine a tool that doesn't just respond to questions but anticipates potential roadblocks or opportunities within the procurement process. Future AI RFP generators will likely connect seamlessly with other key business systems, like your CRM or contract management software. This creates a more unified and intelligent workflow across the entire sales cycle. This level of interoperability in sales tech means your RFP tool will have a much deeper context, leading to even smarter, more strategic responses that are informed by data from every stage of the customer journey.
How the Industry Is Evolving
As more teams adopt AI, the standard for what makes a great proposal is changing. The industry is moving beyond just speed and efficiency toward a greater emphasis on quality and customization. AI tools are helping teams create highly complete and compelling documents that are tailored to specific project goals and client needs. Instead of generic, one-size-fits-all answers, the new expectation is a response that demonstrates a deep understanding of the buyer's challenges. An advanced AI platform helps you meet this rising standard by ensuring every proposal you submit is your absolute best work, perfectly aligned with industry best practices.
What to Expect in the Coming Years
In the coming years, expect AI RFP tools to become even more intelligent through continuous learning. These systems are designed to get smarter over time, adapting based on new information and user feedback. Each RFP you complete helps refine the AI's understanding, improving the quality and relevance of its future suggestions. This means the time savings and quality improvements you see initially will only grow. For sales teams, this translates to a sustainable competitive advantage. If you want to take a closer look at this evolution, our whitepaper on AI in the deal desk explores how this technology will continue to shape the future of sales.
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