The State of the Proposal Profession: What 300 Proposal Leaders Reveal About Winning in 2026

Overview

In this State of the Proposal Profession webinar recording, Jennifer Tomlinson and Ray Meiring of QorusDocs share what 300 proposal leaders reveal about winning in 2026. The 10th annual benchmark report readout explores trends across RFPs, proposals, AI adoption, value selling, SME collaboration, and proposal technology.

The webinar explores how proposal teams are responding to higher RFP volumes, longer evaluation cycles, tighter resources, growing AI adoption, and the increasing role of proposal technology in revenue growth.

Quick Answer

This webinar explains how proposal and RFP teams are adapting to rising proposal volumes, more complex buying cycles, increased pressure on subject matter experts, and growing AI adoption. The benchmark findings show that proposal work is becoming more strategic, more revenue-critical, and more dependent on technology that helps teams improve quality, personalization, win rates, and response capacity.

What You'll Learn

• How proposal and RFP volumes are changing across industries
• Why RFPs are becoming a larger gateway to new and existing client revenue
• Which proposal challenges are most common, including SME collaboration and resource constraints
• How teams are using AI for research, summarization, RFP responses, drafts, and executive summaries
• Why value selling, ROI proof points, and proposal technology are becoming more important to winning business

Key Takeaways

• Proposal and RFP volumes continue to rise, increasing pressure on teams that are already resource constrained.
• RFPs play a critical role in both new business and existing customer revenue, making proposal operations a strategic revenue function.
• Subject matter expert collaboration has become one of the biggest challenges for proposal teams.
• AI adoption is increasing quickly, especially for research, summarization, first drafts, RFP question responses, and executive summaries.
• Teams expect AI to improve personalization, quality, content management, and the ability to respond to more requests.
• Proposal management technology is strongly associated with improvements in win rates, response quality, collaboration, volume, and proposal generation costs.

Who This Webinar is For

This webinar is for proposal managers, RFP response teams, sales teams, business development teams, marketing teams, and professional services organizations that want to understand the latest benchmarks and trends shaping proposal management.

Key Topics Covered

• Proposal and RFP volume: How teams are managing increased request volume and longer response cycles.
• Revenue impact: Why RFPs are increasingly important to both new client acquisition and existing customer growth.
• Proposal challenges: How teams are dealing with SME collaboration, limited resources, personalization needs, and content management.
• Value selling: Why ROI, proof points, and business value are becoming more important in proposals.
• AI adoption: How proposal teams are using AI today and where strategic AI adoption is still emerging. Proposal technology: How technology is helping teams improve win rates, quality, collaboration, and response capacity.