TL;DR: A commercial architecture practice in Manchester was spending 4-6 hours per proposal. Senior architects wrote 3-4 proposals weekly - 15-20 hours that should have gone to design work. We built an agent that analyzes RFPs, matches relevant past projects, assembles team bios, and drafts the approach section. Proposals now take 45 minutes of senior review instead of 4 hours of senior labor. The firm submitted 30% more proposals and won £280K in additional work. The approach sections are often better than what rushed humans were producing.
The Confession
"I became an architect to design buildings. Not write proposals."
Rachel said this during our first call. She's a senior associate at a commercial interiors practice in Manchester. 18 employees, 8 architects, solid reputation across Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire.
She'd been at the firm for nine years. She was good at her job—the design part. But lately, the design part had shrunk.
Three to four proposals per week. Each one taking 4-6 hours. That's 15-20 hours weekly. For one person.
The firm had tried dividing the work. Junior staff could help with assembly, but they didn't know which projects to include or how to position the firm. The principal could write the approach section, but she was already overcommitted. Everything bottlenecked on the seniors.
So Rachel wrote proposals. And proposals. And proposals.
Where the Time Actually Went
When we mapped Rachel's proposal process, we found something interesting.
40% of the time: Assembly. Finding relevant past projects in the firm's archives. Locating team member bios. Pulling project photos. Formatting everything into the template.
30% of the time: Writing. The approach section. How the firm would tackle this specific project. What makes them the right choice.
30% of the time: Review and refinement. Making sure nothing's wrong. Catching errors. Polishing the language.
Here's what stood out: only that middle 30%—the approach section—actually required senior judgment. The assembly was mechanical. The review was catching mistakes that shouldn't have happened in the first place.
But seniors were doing 100% of the work because no one else could do any of it efficiently.
For more on how to calculate what time drains like this actually cost, we've written about the hidden math.
The Error Problem
The proposals weren't just slow. They had mistakes.
15% contained errors. Wrong projects included. Outdated team bios. A team member listed who'd left the firm six months ago. A project photo that didn't match the description.
None of these were fatal. But they were embarrassing. And occasionally, they cost work.
The firm lost two projects the previous year due to slow response. By the time Rachel finished the proposal, the deadline had passed or the client had moved forward with someone else. Not because the firm wasn't capable—because the proposal took too long.
The quality-speed tradeoff was brutal. Rush and make mistakes. Take time and miss deadlines.
What We Built
The proposal draft agent has five stages.
Stage 1: RFP Analysis
The principal inputs key details from the RFP: project type, size, sector, location, specific requirements, evaluation criteria, deadline.
The agent extracts what matters: What is this client actually looking for? What experience would be most relevant? What concerns might they have?
Stage 2: Experience Matching
Searches the firm's project database. Matches on type (office fit-out, retail, healthcare), size, sector, and any specific requirements mentioned in the RFP.
Selects the top 3-5 most relevant projects. Not just "we've done offices before" but "we've done 15,000 sq ft office fit-outs for financial services clients in city centre locations"—the specific match that answers the client's implicit question: have you done this exact thing before?
Stage 3: Team Assembly
Identifies team members with relevant experience on the matched projects. Checks current availability. Pulls their current bios—the ones that were updated last month, not the ones from 2019.
Flags if a proposed team member has a conflict or if someone better suited is available.
Stage 4: Approach Generation
This is where the agent earns its keep.
Drafts the approach section based on the RFP requirements and the firm's methodology. Addresses specific client concerns. Explains how past experience applies to this project. Positions the firm's strengths against the evaluation criteria.
The agent knows the firm's standard methodology because we trained it on their past proposals and internal documentation. It synthesizes that knowledge more consistently than a senior architect rushing at 6 PM to meet a deadline.
Stage 5: Assembly
Compiles everything into the firm's branded template. Formats consistently. Inserts project descriptions, photos, bios, and approach into the right sections. Outputs a draft Google Doc ready for review.
The Human Checkpoint
The senior architect reviews the draft. This is where judgment happens.
Is the approach section strategically right? Does it emphasize the correct differentiators for this specific client? Are there nuances the agent missed?
Rachel refines the approach section. Adds strategic thinking. Removes anything that doesn't fit. Sometimes rewrites a paragraph entirely.
But she's starting from 80% complete. Not from a blank page.
The 4-hour task becomes 45 minutes of review and refinement. The annoying parts are done. The judgment parts remain.
What Surprised Us
The approach sections were often better than manual drafts.
Rachel admitted this reluctantly. "I didn't want to like them. But they're clearer than what I write when I'm rushing."
The agent doesn't get tired. It doesn't cut corners at 5:30 PM because it wants to go home. It consistently synthesizes the firm's methodology and past experience into coherent positioning.
Humans still improve it. But the starting point is stronger than what a rushed human produces from scratch.
The project matching caught things humans missed.
The agent found relevant projects that Rachel had forgotten about. A healthcare fit-out from three years ago that perfectly matched a current RFP. A retail project with the exact square footage the client specified. The firm's database was better than anyone's memory.
Bios stopped being outdated.
The agent always pulled the current version. No more embarrassing moments with staff who'd left or credentials that had changed. This alone probably prevented errors on a quarter of proposals.
The Numbers
Before:
4-6 hours per proposal
15% had errors
Lost 2 projects to slow response
Senior architects spending 15-20 hours/week on proposals
After:
45 minutes per proposal
Near-zero errors
30% more proposals submitted
£280K in additional work won
The ROI math: The agent cost roughly £6,000 to build plus £400/month to operate. It recovered its cost in the first month through won work. Everything after that is margin.
For more context on how agent economics work, we've broken down the numbers here.
The Pattern
If your business runs on proposals, quotes, or SOWs, you probably have a version of this problem.
The symptoms:
Senior people spending significant time on document assembly
Inconsistent quality depending on who writes it and how rushed they are
Past work and team capabilities not fully represented
Deadlines missed or cut close because proposals take too long
The core issue: 80% of proposal work is assembly, not judgment. But it's structured in a way that requires judgment for 100%.
The fix isn't hiring more juniors to help. It's restructuring so assembly happens automatically and seniors only do the parts that actually need them.
Next Steps
Want to see 25 agent architectures across different industries? Download Unstuck—it includes this one plus blueprints for lead gen, invoicing, collections, dispatch, and more.
Think proposals might be your bottleneck? Book a Bottleneck Audit. 30 minutes, no pitch. We'll map your current proposal process and identify where time is actually going.
by SP, CEO - Connect on LinkedIn
for the AdAI Ed. Team
