The AI hype machine: Proposal and contract management edition

I stumbled across VisibleThread’s website and products researching another piece about the nonmnaufacturer rule (see endnote), and was sucked into their marketing for AI-enabled proposal and contract management solutions.

As trusted by Airbus, General Dynamics, and Accenture, VisibleThread’s Docs and Writer tools promise AI enhances the review and creation of business documents, including federal contracts and proposals. For proposals, VT addresses the following challenges:

Inefficient, 100% manual review process
Tight deadlines, working long hours
Managing compliance with multiple stakeholders
Not speaking customer language
Inconsistent quality

How does the tool accomplish this? Here, the site’s copywriters could use a copyeditor, AI or otherwise. The tool’s promises include “shred compliance matrix,” although a compliance matrix is the output of shredding an RFP; FAR/DFARS, which is notably not parallel with the other items; and readability enhancements.

From VisibleThread’s proposal management page, retrieved 10 May2024.

Similarly, the contracts management page suggests it overcomes “100% manual review of contracts (using CTRL + F), burnout.” If my contracts managers are reviewing contracts using CTRL+F, they will be terminated.

How many GSA Schedule orders do I see that contain not only 52.212-4 (often a version that conflicts with the underlying MAS contract), but also 52.232-7, the noncommercial time-and-materials payment clause? Reviewers searching for 52.212-4 then assuming only its T&M payment payment clause appears will be mistaken.

We create RFP and contract briefs to capture the results of our professional review and analysis. We continue adding our analysis along with any updates to the contract, because shorthand isn’t our aim. Most important, by building these briefs, we learn each detail of the contract; we learn it was formed commercially with 52.232-7’s and might more closely examine for discrepancies, and so we are on-guard even with Christian doctrine clauses. Alternately, if I see a contract with 52.212-5(b) and none of its clauses elsewhere, I am impressed and prepared to engage a skilled professional.

Just as note-taking is at least as key to learning as reviewing the notes later, shredding RFPs and developing briefs are not how we learn, but how we know. The autonomous creation of these tools sounds good in theory, but in practice I suspect it compromises understanding, interpretation, and application, and therefore proposal and contract compliance, strategy, and outcomes.

Endnote:

Essentially, the nonmanufacturer rule requires small-business resellers to sell product manufactured by small businesses for the buying agency to receive SBA credit for contracting with a small business. SBA can waive this rule for product not manufactured by small businesses, allowing agencies to receive socioeconomic credit for sales by resellers of product manufactured by any type of business, including other than small. — Jason