# How to Use AI to Write Government Proposals in 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bny06xHtMM

[00:00] Tell you what kills most solo contracts before they even get started.
[00:01] It's not certifications.
[00:03] It's not capabilities.
[00:05] Heck, it's not even past performance.
[00:07] It's bandwidth.
[00:07] Because if you're a solo team, you're expected to answer phone calls, find solicitations, evaluate them, bid on them.
[00:14] It is a lot.
[00:18] But AI has made things so simple.
[00:21] It can build a whole system for you.
[00:23] Make you go from a one-man band to an entire business operations.
[00:25] And I'm going to show you how to do that today.
[00:27] Let's step in.
[00:33] I'm a federal contracting officer with over 10 years of experience.
[00:35] That's over a decade of soliciting, evaluating, and awarding federal contracts.
[00:40] And we know that the landscape is changing.
[00:42] Nothing looks the same as yesterday.
[00:44] AI is making things look completely different.
[00:48] People are submitting proposals with the help of AI, and it's okay.
[00:50] Because we have to move forward as the federal government, just like you have to move forward.
[00:56] And we're expected to, and we're going to do that together.
[00:58] As a.
[01:00] Solo contractor, let me describe your work week.
[01:04] On Monday, you hop on sam.gov and find 52 solicitations that match your next code.
[01:06] On Tuesday, you're out on a job site, so you miss a important phone call from a prime contractor.
[01:13] Wednesday, you decide to give him a call back, but he's already filled the position that he called you for.
[01:18] On Thursday, you finally sit down to write that proposal that's due tomorrow on Friday.
[01:24] Sound familiar?
[01:25] But it doesn't have to be that way.
[01:27] I'mma show you how to put a system in place like a large business.
[01:31] Here's what large contractors have.
[01:32] They have an analyst scanning sam.gov looking for opportunities.
[01:35] They have executives looking through those opportunities, seeing if it's worth their while.
[01:41] They have a pricing team seeing if it makes financial sense for the company to go after that.
[01:45] And if it all does, they have a proposal writing team that submits to the federal government.
[01:51] And in the background, there's a receptionist that's answering phone calls, setting up business meetings to make sure the company is in good standings, and moving forward.
[02:00] But, you know who's doing this on your end?
[02:01] It's you.
[02:02] Until now.
[02:03] There's AI that can do all of those things I listed.
[02:06] And I'm going to show you exactly how to use those tools, what tools to use, [music] and to set up your company from a small business to operating multi-functional team.
[02:18] Before we get into it, I want to be very clear.
[02:19] I'm not sponsored by any of these companies I'm about to name.
[02:21] I just did a little research so you can take your business to the next level.
[02:24] Most of these tools are less than $100 per month.
[02:28] Heck, some are even free.
[02:31] What it's going to do for your company, though, it's going to take you to the next level.
[02:33] It's going to help you win contract awards, and it's going to make you that much more competitive.
[02:39] Check it out.
[02:39] The first problem I'm going to solve is filtering opportunities.
[02:42] Right now, you're probably looking through sam.gov, looking through hundreds and hundreds of solicitations, just to find two or three that matches your NAICS code.
[02:49] And when you do, you then got to look through 50-60 documents just to see if you're going to propose on it.
[02:56] [music]
[02:57] And you're going off of a gut feeling.
[02:59] But, what if I told you there's a better way?
[03:00] Because there is.
[03:01] It's called.
[03:02] Procure.
[03:02] It's an AI tool.
[03:05] Think of it like an analyst.
[03:06] What it does [music] is scan sam.gov, look for your NAICS code, matches it with your capability statement, pulls out keywords, and sends you an executive summary each morning [music] telling you which opportunity you should bid on.
[03:20] This is exactly what you need to start your day.
[03:22] Once you receive your executive summaries, it's not smart to go after every opportunity you see.
[03:26] You want to be strategic about it, and go after the ones that have the greatest opportunity for you to win a contract award.
[03:33] You want to build up criteria so that you can evaluate for a go or no go.
[03:39] So, what you're going to do is set up six things that you're looking at.
[03:42] You're going to grade them on a scale of one to three.
[03:44] If they score grand total above 10, then those are the ones you're going to go after.
[03:49] If it's less than 10, then you don't want to go after those.
[03:52] That's going to be a stretch for you.
[03:53] So, the first thing you're going to look at is the NAICS code.
[03:56] Does this NAICS code properly align with my NAICS code?
[03:59] If it does, grade it a three.
[04:04] If it kind of does, give it a two.
[04:05] [music]
[04:07] If it'll be a stretch, give it a one.
[04:10] Then you look at past performance.
[04:12] Do you have a perfectly aligned past performance for this requirement?
[04:14] If so, grade yourself a three.
[04:18] If you kind of do, give it a two.
[04:21] [music]
[04:21] If it's a stretch, give it a one.
[04:25] Then you look at the set-aside.
[04:25] Is this set-aside for something in your socioeconomic class?
[04:28] If so, give it a three.
[04:32] If not, kind of, give it a two.
[04:36] If it's a far-fetch, give it a one.
[04:40] Then you look at your relationship with the agency.
[04:42] Do you know the agency?
[04:45] Have you worked with them?
[04:45] If so, grade yourself a three.
[04:49] If you haven't, grade yourself a one.
[04:52] If it's somewhere in the middle, give it a two.
[04:55] Then you look at the incumbent status.
[04:58] Are you going against the incumbent?
[05:00] Are you the incumbent?
[05:00] If you are the incumbent, grade yourself a three.
[05:05] If you're not the incumbent, and you're going against if there's no incumbent, give yourself a two.
[05:11] If you're going against the incumbent, someone who's won this contract before, give it a one.
[05:17] And the last thing you're going to look at is your proposal availability.
[05:21] [music]
[05:22] Are you going to have time to do this proposal?
[05:24] If you have plenty of time, give yourself a three.
[05:27] If you don't have much time, give yourself a two.
[05:31] If it's going to be a stretch you have to cancel all plans, grade it a one.
[05:36] You're going to add up each one of these categories.
[05:37] And again, if it's above 10, these are the ones that you should go after.
[05:42] If it's 10 or below, [music] then probably not a good opportunity for you.
[05:49] Next level, you put all this grading criteria in chat or chat GPT.
[05:57] Once you do that, it can score all of these executive summaries for you, spit out the numbers, and you can know exactly which contracts you could go.
[06:05] After.
[06:06] [music]
[06:06] This is key.
[06:06] This is how you use AI to win government contracts.
[06:09] Now that we know which contracts we're going to go after, we need to know exactly what they're asking of us.
[06:14] We're going to use chat GPT and Claude for this.
[06:19] Feed in sections L and M into one of these AI tools.
[06:21] Your prompt is going to say, "You are a federal proposal analyst."
[06:25] Read the attached RFP sections L and M.
[06:29] Extract every requirement from section L.
[06:32] Format, page limits, submission instructions, required sections.
[06:37] Extract every evaluation criteria from section M.
[06:41] Factors, relative weight if stated, order of importance.
[06:46] Present as two separate tables.
[06:49] What comes back is your proposal blueprint.
[06:51] It tells you exactly what the government is looking for, the page limits, all the requirements for the solicitation.
[06:58] Everything that you need in order to be successful in your proposal.
[06:59] Our next step is to make sure that we're in a position to win this contract.
[07:02] We're going to take the RFP, the agency's.
[07:06] Mission statement, and we're going to take our most relevant past performance, and upload all these things into our AI tool.
[07:12] You then are going to use this prompt.
[07:14] "Identify three to five win themes, specific reasons why a company with this past performance is uniquely positioned to win this contract."
[07:23] For each theme, one sentence theme statement, one sentence proof point.
[07:27] Next is drafting your technical approach.
[07:29] Where most contractors fail, and I'm going to tell you now, federal contracting officers and evaluators are not going for it.
[07:38] They take the PWS and tell AI had a technical approach.
[07:41] We know it's AI.
[07:44] We can tell how it's written.
[07:46] What you need to do you can utilize AI as a tool to help and aid you polish your technical approach.
[07:52] So, you tell it what you can do, what your company does, you can upload your capability statement, and then have it build a technical approach off your capability statement and what you've already stated to refine it.
[08:06] The last step is the final compliance check.
[08:08] You're going to take the RFP with sections L and M with your proposal.
[08:13] You're going to upload them all into your AI tool to make sure that your proposal speaks to exactly what the RFP is asking for.
[08:19] If all is done, then you may be ready to submit.
[08:22] The next AI tool that I want you to look into and download is called Synthflow.
[08:26] This is an AI receptionist.
[08:29] [music]
[08:30] Now that you're winning government contracts, you could be contacted by anyone.
[08:33] The PM, the COR, the contracting officer.
[08:37] And you want to make sure that you're available.
[08:38] A reliable source that's taking notes, that's sticking to your calendar, and that's prioritizing your callbacks.
[08:46] This AI tool is doing all of those things.
[08:48] When you're setting it up, give your company name, give your next code, share your capability [music] statement.
[08:54] That way this AI knows how to answer questions when someone calls.
[08:56] And if it's truly important, it patches it directly over to you for a warm [music] handoff.
[09:02] This AI is incredible, and you need to use it, especially if you're a one-man contractor.
[09:06] We're now in a time.
[09:09] Where if you're not using AI, you're falling behind.
[09:12] Let's use it as a tool.
[09:13] It's not your brain, and it's not your company.
[09:16] We still need you to deliver and put forth effort as a company.
[09:20] Because AI makes everybody sound smart, but can you truly deliver?