Train AI on your past RFPs without sounding like a robot. Learn how to preserve your brand voice while streamlining the proposal process with expert-backed strategies.
In the age of automation, artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming an indispensable ally in the RFP process. But as businesses rush to streamline their proposal workflows, one essential ingredient often gets left behind: brand voice. The best RFPs aren’t just accurate — they’re persuasive, consistent, and unmistakably “you.” So how do you train an AI to write like your team, while still enjoying all the speed and structure automation offers?
Let’s break it down.
Why Train an AI on Past RFPs?
Training an AI model on your historical proposals gives it a baseline understanding of how your business communicates — your tone, structure, preferred phrasings, boilerplate sections, and even the nuances that set your proposals apart. When done right, the result is an assistant that sounds less like a robot and more like a trusted member of your team.
Rather than generating generic content, the AI can:
- Mirror your tone of voice
- Pull accurate responses from past approved content
- Adapt answers to different industries or use cases
- Reduce rewriting and editing time
But achieving that requires more than uploading a folder of PDFs into a platform and hitting “train.”
Step 1: Curate and Clean Your Source Material
The first step is data hygiene. Only feed the AI what you want it to learn. That means:
- Choose only your best, most up-to-date RFP responses
- Remove outdated product details, legacy references, or disjointed messaging
- Consolidate similar answers and standardize formatting
- Separate your long-form responses, executive summaries, and compliance sections
Tip: Assign someone with editorial experience to oversee this curation phase. Garbage in, garbage out applies to AI too.
Step 2: Define Your Brand Voice — With Precision
Next, build a brand voice guide. This should include:
- Tone (formal, conversational, technical, etc.)
- Lexicon (product terms, forbidden words, jargon dos and don’ts)
- Sentence structure examples
- Example “great answers” vs. ones that need improvement
Many RFP tools now allow you to “lock in” tone and voice preferences so that your AI assistant doesn’t drift. A clearly defined style guide ensures consistency, especially when multiple team members contribute to training.
Step 3: Use an RFP Platform That Supports Custom Training
Not all RFP software handles AI training equally. Look for tools that allow:
- Uploading and tagging past content
- Custom training based on approved responses
- Voice tuning based on your brand guide
- In-context learning (i.e., adapting based on current question phrasing)
Platforms like Narwin, for instance, were designed with brand voice retention as a core feature — allowing teams to train their AI on carefully curated content libraries and adjust tone dynamically, without needing a technical background.
Step 4: Test, Edit, and Train Again
Training is not a one-and-done process. You’ll want to:
- Test the AI on real RFP questions
- Have subject-matter experts or writers review the output
- Provide feedback and edit suggestions
- Re-train or reinforce preferred answers
This iterative loop ensures the model grows more accurate — and more aligned with your evolving voice — over time.
Step 5: Balance Automation With Human Oversight
Even the best-trained AI can’t replace strategic thinking or emotional nuance. Make sure your process still includes:
- A human lead editor for final proposal reviews
- A feedback loop where SMEs can flag poor outputs
- Guidelines for when to not use AI-generated answers
The goal isn’t to hand over the wheel completely — it’s to automate what’s repetitive, so your team can focus on what’s compelling.
Final Thoughts: Keep Your Voice, Amplify Your Efficiency
AI is transforming proposal writing, but without brand fidelity, automation risks becoming just noise. By curating strong content, defining your voice, and choosing the right tools, you can train an AI that doesn’t just respond to RFPs — it responds like you.
In 2025 and beyond, companies that win won’t just be fast — they’ll be unmistakably themselves.