RFP Automation: Everything you need to know

Key Takeaway:

RFP Automation is the process of migrating from manually responding to RFPs to using AI tools to complete answers. RFP Automation enables faster bidding, consistent messaging, and effective collaboration.

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Manual RFPs? 

If the deadline is tight. 

The requirements are lengthy. 

Your team is scrambling to track down the right documents, chase approvals, and make sure every answer is polished and accurate.

By the time you submit your RFP, you’re exhausted, and you’re not even sure if all that effort will pay off.

Instead of manually repeating the same tasks for every request, RFP automation centralizes your content, streamlines collaboration, and handles the repetitive work in seconds. 

RFP Automation frees your team to focus on the parts of the proposal that move the needle, tailoring responses, highlighting differentiators, and building a stronger case to win.

What are the challenges in manual RFP responses?

Before we talk automation, let’s be real about the grind of manual RFP work. 

If you’ve ever juggled a live deal cycle while an RFP lands in your inbox, you know the mental math: “Can I even get this done without slipping on my other accounts?”

Manual RFPs are a bottleneck in more ways than one. They are: 

1. Time-consuming content hunts

Without a proper knowledge management system, finding the right response feels like a scavenger hunt. 

You’re digging through old proposal PDFs, Slack threads, SharePoint folders, or worse, pinging the one SME who “knows where that doc is” only to find out they’re out of office.

By the time you piece things together, you’ve lost hours that could have gone into discovery calls or advancing an active deal. 

And yes, you’ll still spend another 30 minutes just fixing formatting so it doesn’t look like a Frankenstein document.

2. Inconsistent and outdated responses

Manual copy-paste is a dangerous game. 

One wrong grab from an old proposal, and you’ve sent the client a stat from 2021 or a feature your product no longer supports.

When there’s no single source of truth, the kind a best-in-class RFP platform provides, accuracy becomes a moving target. 

You might win the technical points, but lose trust because your answers contradict what sales or the product shared earlier

3. Poor collaboration and version control

Proposal reviews without automation are a circus. 

Marketing’s edits live in a Google Doc.

Legal’s redlines are in a tracked-changes Word file. 

Your SE’s notes? Buried in an email chain from three days ago.

By the time you merge it all, you’re triple-checking to make sure you’re not working off an outdated draft. 

That’s when deadlines creep up, and quality suffers, not because the team isn’t capable, but because the process is broken.

4. Limited customization

When you’re crunched for time, personalization is usually the first thing to go. 

You fall back on “safe” boilerplate answers, knowing they won’t truly resonate with the client.

The result? A proposal that checks all the boxes but doesn’t feel like it was written for them. 

Automation changes this game; it handles the heavy lifting so you can add the strategic touches that win deals.

Read more: Here’s a deeper dive into overcoming RFP challenges with AI

How automated RFP response works

Today, RFP automation is built to remove the friction from every step of the RFP response process, from the moment a request arrives to the moment it’s submitted.

With automated RFPs, you can:

• Generate your first draft in minutes using intelligent autofill. Past approved responses are automatically matched to RFP questions, so you can go from blank page to draft-ready in under 10 minutes.

• Analyze incoming RFPs for scope, fit, and priority based on historical win data and business goals.

• Build adaptable templates that maintain brand consistency while allowing tailored messaging for each opportunity.

• Assign tasks automatically to subject matter experts so the right knowledge is captured without endless back-and-forth emails.

• Streamline the review process with real-time collaboration, tracked changes, and version control, ensuring feedback from proposal managers, SMEs, and sales leaders is consolidated in one place.

• Centralize all RFP responses and resources in a searchable library, making it easy to find the most relevant content instantly.

• Use semantic search to surface related answers even if the wording differs from past proposals.

The result? 

Faster first drafts, fewer delays, and a smoother path from submission request, freeing your team to focus on strategy, personalization, and winning more bids.

How AI RFP automation helps you win more bids

The real benefit of automating RFPs isn’t just about doing things faster; it’s about doing them smarter. 

In high-stakes sales cycles where every detail counts, the right system gives Sales Engineers and Bid Managers the firepower to compete and win. 

Here’s how:

• Faster turnaround: Instead of chasing SMEs for content or starting from a blank page, AI RFP management software instantly surfaces the most relevant, pre-approved answers from your knowledge base. Proposals that once took weeks can now be submitted in days, without sacrificing quality.

• Higher quality & compliance: Built-in compliance checks ensure every response aligns with RFP evaluation criteria and internal brand standards. No more last-minute scrambles to fix mismatched formatting or missing details.

• Increased capacity: With repetitive tasks automated, from formatting to content retrieval, your team can respond to more opportunities in parallel. That means you can pursue the bids that matter without burning out your proposal team.

• Better customization at scale: Dynamic content blocks let you tailor each proposal to the client’s exact needs while keeping messaging consistent. An SE can drop in technical specs, while an AE layers in client-specific value props, all within the same workspace.

• Data-driven decisions: Win/loss analytics and proposal performance insights show you which responses resonate most with evaluators. Over time, this helps refine your RFP response management strategy and increase your probability of winning.

With the right automation in place, your RFP automation becomes a strategic advantage, freeing sales teams to focus on relationship building, competitive positioning, and crafting the win themes that close deals.

What are the myths worth busting around RFP Automation?

Myth 1: “RFP automation software gives generic, low-quality answers.”

Reality:
We all know this: generic answers come from outdated content libraries, not from automation. 

The truth is that, when you are scrambling for context and the latest updates when filling an RFP, it’s likely that you’ll resort to safe (read: vague) answers.

Meanwhile, modern request for proposal automation uses real-time organizational knowledge, past submissions, product updates, and approved boilerplates to generate responses that are accurate, consistent, and tailored to each deal.

With RFP automation, you get contextual, reviewer-ready drafts, not copy-paste templates.

Myth 2: “RFP automation still requires the same level of SME involvement.”

Reality:
Most SME time is wasted answering repeated questions, not solving complex issues. 

SEs specifically spend time demo-ing and aiding AEs with last-minute requests that they barely spend time solutioning for the prospect. 

Automation eliminates repetitive drafting by generating first drafts and routing only edge cases to SMEs. 

By automating RFPs, your SMEs can technically fill more RFPs in a month. (See this video of a VP talking about how they went from 15 RFPs to 50 RFPs a month using automation.)

All they have to do is review, refine, and approve instead of writing from scratch.

Basically, this reduces SME load dramatically and prevents burnout.

Myth 3: “Automation can’t handle complex formats like Word, Excel, or procurement portals.”

Reality:
Manually filling RFPs doesn’t empower you to keep up with the real-world complexity in today’s sales process.

Conversely, AI-native RFP automation can ingest and auto-complete questionnaires across Word documents, Excel sheets with tables and character limits, PDFs, and browser-based RFP portals without breaking formatting or structure.

So no matter the document thrown your way by a prospect, automation isn’t limited by format; it adapts to the way enterprises actually receive RFPs.

How to migrate to automated RFPs - Step-by-step guide

RFP automation and proposal management go far beyond “just storing templates.” 

These smart processes are designed to remove the slow, repetitive, non-revenue-generating steps from your day so you can focus on winning strategy, customer insight, and building trust. 

Here’s what you’ll need to do to move into an automated RFP process:

1. Find a collaboration tool for RFP management software

Instead of bouncing between email threads, SharePoint links, and Google Docs, everyone works in the same workspace: AEs, SEs, proposal managers, SMEs, and even legal. 

Changes are tracked automatically, and you tag people for reviews the same way you’d comment in Slack or a project management app.

2. Centralize content libraries with your sales enablement team

Every battle-tested response, product spec sheet, case study, and compliance statement lives in one searchable, AI repository. 

This means you type “ISO certification” or “integration with Salesforce” and instantly pull the most recent, vetted answer. 

No more pinging three SMEs on Slack at 10 p.m. to find last year’s security documentation.

3. Get pre-approved templates inside RFP software

Instead of starting from scratch or digging through old folders, you launch every response from a branded, compliance-ready template that already includes your latest messaging, pricing structures, and legal clauses. 

For example, suppose you’re an SE responding to a manufacturing RFP. 

In that case, you start with a boilerplate that’s already approved by legal and product marketing, but still tweak the executive summary to speak directly to the client’s operational pain points.

Your sales enablement can also help with this. 

4. Do compliance checks right inside the RFP software

Before you hit “submit,” the software scans your entire proposal against the RFP evaluation criteria. 

Missed a mandatory requirement or forgot to include a signed NDA? 

The system flags it so you fix it instantly, rather than losing points with the evaluator.

5. Track progress of each RFP and status of every response

Proposal deadlines creep up fast. 

Automation platforms give you real-time dashboards showing what’s done, who’s stuck, and what’s overdue. 

If your SE is still working on the technical fit section, you’ll see it and get an automated reminder sent their way without chasing them manually.

Whether you’re using a hotel RFP tool to secure a corporate travel account or an enterprise-grade RFP management platform to land a seven-figure SaaS deal, the benefits are the same: less time buried in admin work, more time refining your win themes, competitive positioning, and customer-specific storytelling.

Do you need RFP automation software?

Today’s sales cycles are faster, more competitive, and far less forgiving. Prospects expect highly tailored proposals that speak directly to their needs, and they expect them yesterday. 

As a Sales Engineer or a Proposal Manager, that means you’re juggling multiple deals at different stages, demo requests, technical scoping calls, and, somewhere in the middle of it all, an RFP that needs to be turned around in days.

Here’s where AI RFP automation software steps in. It helps sales teams keep up with the pace of modern buying cycles without burning out or sacrificing quality.

What changes when you automate?

• Faster turnaround without sacrificing quality
  Imagine you get a 50-page enterprise RFP on a Monday afternoon. Instead of manually digging for answers, automation autofills 70–80% of the content from your approved library in under 10 minutes. You and your SE can spend your time refining technical details and crafting a compelling value proposition instead of chasing down boilerplate information.

• More time to pursue additional opportunities
  Without automation, one large RFP could monopolize your week. With automation, you can respond to that enterprise RFP and still work on a smaller but strategic hotel RFP that came in unexpectedly. Instead of choosing one over the other, you can tackle both, opening the door to more wins.

• Consistency in messaging and compliance
  AEs know how quickly brand messaging can drift when multiple people work on different proposals. Automation ensures every answer aligns with your most up-to-date positioning, competitive differentiators, and compliance requirements. Even if three SEs handle three different proposals, the messaging stays tight and on-brand.

• Freedom to focus on strategy, not paperwork
  Instead of spending hours formatting responses or verifying specs, your team can concentrate on the deal strategy, tailoring win themes to the client’s priorities, showcasing ROI models, or adding a customer success story that directly addresses their pain points.

Whether it’s a quick-turn hospitality proposal or a multi-department enterprise RFP, automated RFP management keeps your team working on the parts of the process that win deals. 

The repetitive tasks? 

The software handles them, so your AEs and SEs can do what they do best: build trust, demonstrate value, and close business.

Why enterprises should use RFP automation software

1. RFPs are high-stakes, high-volume, and high-complexity

You deal with dozens to hundreds of RFPs, DDQs, and security questionnaires every quarter. 

Manual workflows simply can’t keep up with the volume, compliance requirements, or level of customization needed to stay competitive.

Even when you have to send an RFP rejection letter, automation keeps the process professional and fast

2. Manual processes drain time and expertise

Hours are lost chasing SMEs, hunting for the latest answers across scattered documents, and reformatting responses. 

You waste weeks on repetitive tasks that should take minutes.

3. Consistency and accuracy matter for credibility

You know the risk, inconsistent answers, outdated information, or copy-paste errors hurt trust. 

RFP automation software enforces standardization, version control, and compliance - reducing risk and improving evaluator confidence.

4. Cross-functional collaboration is painful without the right system

You have a longer buying cycle, and that means legal, product, security, sales, and engineering all need to contribute to help you and your AE close the deal

Centralizing knowledge and workflows removes chaos, context loss, and bottlenecks.

5. Enterprises need speed without sacrificing compliance

Submitting late or submitting with errors is a deal killer you cannot afford.  

RFP software automates the grunt work, ensures every requirement is met, and helps teams move faster without shortcuts.

6. Better proposals directly impact revenue

A tighter, more complete, more tailored response drives higher win rates. 

More submissions → higher pipeline coverage → more revenue.

How RFP automation software helps enterprises

1. Centralizes product knowledge into a single source of truth

All approved answers, policies, security language, boilerplates, product descriptions, and legal statements live in one place that’s easy to search, always updated.

2. Auto-fills answers using AI + reusable content

Instead of writing from scratch, the system automatically suggests or fully drafts responses grounded in your latest product knowledge, past submissions, and SME-approved content.

3. Handles complex formatting + compliance requirements

Templates, tables, multiple file formats, character limits, and government-style formatting are auto-managed so teams don’t spend hours on layout fixes.

4. Streamlines collaboration across teams

Assign questions, track status, manage approvals, and route reviews seamlessly. 

Everything is centralized without Slack chaos or email back-and-forth.

5. Reduces SME burnout

Experts get notified only when needed, with pre-built drafts to approve or refine. No repetitive writing. No revisiting the same question 50 times a year.

6. Integrates with the tools your team already uses

Connects with Salesforce, Slack, Confluence, SharePoint, Drive, security repositories, and more, so context flows without manual stitching.

7. Improves with every submission

Each completed RFP trains the system with better answers, more examples, and clearer patterns. This way, performance compounds over time.

8. Produces polished, evaluator-friendly proposals

Final documents are consistent, structured, branded, and easy to navigate, giving your proposals an instant edge in competitive evaluations.

Key features to look for in RFP automation software

Not all RFP automation software is built the same. 

If you’re an Account Executive or Sales Engineer, the right tool isn’t just about “filling out forms faster”; it’s about turning every RFP into a streamlined, data-driven, and customer-specific win opportunity.

Here’s what to look for when evaluating RFP management software:

1. AI autofill and content matching in RFP software

The fastest way to your first draft is no longer hours of Ctrl+F in old folders; it’s intelligent autofill. 

AI can instantly match incoming RFP questions with your highest-performing, most up-to-date answers from a centralized content library. 

This not only gets you to a workable first draft in under 10 minutes but also reduces repetitive typing and prevents inconsistent messaging.

2. Centralized, searchable knowledge hub in RFP automation software

A single source of truth is critical for consistent, accurate RFP responses. 

A well-structured content library should house approved boilerplates, technical specs, compliance statements, and past proposals, all tagged for easy retrieval. 

This lets you pull in detailed product explanations, customer case studies, or compliance answers without hunting through emails or outdated files.

3. Real-time, role-based collaboration in an RFP automation tool

When proposal managers, SMEs, legal teams, and sales all work in the same platform, you eliminate version chaos. 

Real-time editing ensures you’re not working on the wrong draft, while built-in task assignments and status tracking keep the entire team moving forward without endless email threads.

4. Integrated review and approval workflows

An RFP can fall apart if reviews drag on or feedback gets lost. 

Automation software should route each section to the right subject matter expert, track pending approvals, and send reminders, so you always know who’s holding the ball and when it’s coming back.

5. Compliance and quality checks in RFP software

Before an RFP leaves your hands, automation can run through the document to ensure every requirement is met and every answer is aligned with brand, tone, and legal standards. 

This proactive check minimizes last-minute scrambles and missed criteria.

6. Insights and proposal analytics in proposal automation software

Beyond completion speed, you need to know what’s working. 

RFP Metrics can highlight which content wins most often, where you spend the most time, and which opportunities have the highest probability of winning, helping you refine your capture strategy.

7. Enterprise-grade security in proposal management software

From NDA-protected technical data to pricing models, your RFP content contains highly sensitive information. 

Look for encryption, role-based permissions, and SSO to keep everything secure while enabling quick, controlled access. 

You can refer to RFP software reviews for this.

This way, you’re not just “automating responses”; you’re equipping your team with a complete RFP management process that boosts accuracy, speed, and win rates while letting you focus on tailoring the proposal to the customer’s motivators.

Why use SiftHub for RFP Automation

Win more deals faster

SiftHub shortens the entire RFP cycle from weeks to hours. 

Instead of scrambling to hunt answers, chase SMEs, or reformat documents, teams get complete first drafts instantly, grounded in your product narrative, security posture, and past wins. 

More submissions, higher response quality, and tighter turnarounds translate directly into higher win rates.

Stop manual RFPs entirely 

SiftHub’s RFP Agent eliminates repetitive, copy-paste work. It ingests the full RFP, whether it’s a 200-question DDQ or a technical questionnaire, and auto-completes answers with context from your connected knowledge base. 

Teams simply review and finalize. 

• No stitching PDFs. 
• No manual imports.
• No rebuilding the same response pack every time.

Get accurate answers every time

SiftHub answers are grounded in your real-time product knowledge, not static libraries or keyword matching. 

It understands product nuances, versioning, compliance changes, and past submissions, so answers stay consistent, correct, and audit-ready. 

Version control, answer lineage, and SME-approved content ensure zero guesswork.

Work on Word, Excel, or Web-based questionnaires

Upload anything.

SiftHub supports:

• Word-based questionnaires
  
  
• Excel grids with nested tables
  
  
• Browser-based procurement portals
  
  
• Vendor questionnaires behind login

Complex tables, conditional questions, character limits, or section formatting. 

SiftHub handles it all without breaking structure.

Collaborate without chaos

Instead of chasing SMEs across Slack threads and email chains, teams collaborate directly inside SiftHub. 

Assign sections, tag reviewers, route approvals, track progress, and keep everyone aligned in one place. 

SMEs only step in when needed, with ready-to-edit drafts instead of blank fields.

Manage multi-language responses

For global enterprises, SiftHub generates and formats responses in multiple languages, ensuring accuracy, tone, and compliance phrasing are maintained. 

Local teams get native-quality responses instantly, eliminating slow translation workflows and inconsistent terminology.

Respond from anywhere with the Browser extension

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SiftHub’s browser extension brings your entire knowledge base anywhere you work, right inside procurement portals, vendor websites, or bespoke web questionnaires. 

It autofills relevant answers, maintains formatting, and ensures consistency, even in platforms that don’t accept uploads.

Secure your data 

Enterprises trust SiftHub because every response is backed by your verified, security-reviewed content. 

Sensitive policies, certifications, and security language are stored securely, updated centrally, and applied consistently. 

Whether it’s SOC 2, ISO, GDPR, or HIPAA, SiftHub helps mitigate compliance risk by enforcing the right language, every time.

Integrate your CRM 

SiftHub integrates seamlessly with the systems you already rely on.

CRM integration (Salesforce, HubSpot) brings deal context, timelines, and opportunity details directly into the RFP workflow, so every response reflects the right scope, product tier, and customer need.

Life before vs after SiftHub for RFP automation

Before SiftHub

RFPs meant chaos. 

Teams scattered answers across Notion, Slack, Confluence, Drive, and old submissions. 

SEs were dragged into the same questions over and over. 

Weeks were lost copy-pasting into Word, fixing Excel formatting, and navigating painful procurement portals. 

Answers were inconsistent, context was missing, and deadlines felt like fire drills. 

Every new RFP meant starting from scratch.

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After SiftHub

RFPs complete themselves. 

SiftHub pulls context from your real-time product knowledge and auto-fills questionnaires in Word, Excel, and web portals — with accurate, compliant answers. Read more on why SiftHub is the best AI RFP tool.

SMEs only step in for quick approvals. Collaboration happens in one place. Formatting works automatically. 

Multi-language drafts are instant. 

And the entire cycle shrinks from weeks to hours, so teams win more deals with less effort.

User Story: Proof AI level automation shows real-time value

"At Sirion, being AI-first isn’t just a strategy; it is core to how we unlock value for our customers. Contracts are rich sources of intelligence, and AI allows us to surface that value in real time. That’s why we also prioritize working with tools that are AI-first — because we believe every function, from sales to legal, deserves the speed, precision, and insight that only AI can deliver."

Gordon Thompson

EVP Presales & Business Strategy, Sirion

ROI from RFP Automation

You want your efforts in automating RFPs to yield results from the very first day. Ensure you are looking for a tool that comes with native connectors, pre-built templates, and usage scalability. Use this ROI calculator to see how much time an RFP Automation tool like SiftHub can save you.