In February 1637, the price of a single tulip in Amsterdam reached 5,500 guilders – roughly the price of a luxury house. Within days, the price of bulbs had fallen by more than 90%.

There are those who worry that AI is merely the latest bubble: a tulip, a South Sea Company stock, a dot com startup. Largely, that’s because the measurable returns for the billions invested in the new technology aren’t (yet) resulting in tangible benefits for enough users, and hence enough revenue for vendors – despite all the hype.

Indeed, research we published last summer talked about “the elusive AI business case”. It makes obvious sense for bidders to embrace AI, but few were reaping measurable returns. Were staff numbers falling? Was enough SME time being freed up for them to earn more in their “day jobs”, or for fewer to be needed? Were companies using AI actually winning more?

And you know what? In the past few months, I’ve started to see signs that Proposal GenAI tulips may be beginning to bloom – even as the stock market gets nervous about the wider picture.

But, funnily, it’s not those who’ve invested the time to become truly proficient in the tech who are starting to reap the greatest benefits – whether they’re now expert in using Copilot + SharePoint, or the new AI functionality in their existing knowledge management or CRM platform, or collaborating with vendors to craft something bespoke.

That tech expertise is essential to success, of course. Too many bid functions are dabbling, not being disciplined.

But from what I’ve seen, the real emerging winners are those who’ve given careful thought to the content towards which they’re pointing their AI. Content is king (or queen!): core, carefully curated “best practice” content, sources of trusted corporate content within the organisation – or occasional forays into global sources of material.

Careful thought to training those involved in bidding to use AI sensibly and safely, and to use it to craft differentiation – rather than “computer says” proposals that could be generated and submitted while masking the lack of any actual underlying capability to deliver the necessary solution successfully. Careful thought to the much-needed reshaping of the respective content development roles of proposal professionals, salespeople and content contributors.

Those organisations are out there – be in no doubt. They may not all be shouting from the rooftops: after all, would you give away your potential competitive advantage? The conversation may still be too dominated by vendors – another day, another sales-y webinar! But we’re on the verge of moving from “this makes logical sense” and “point” successes to “we’ve delivered real, quantifiable benefits”.