For decades, the grueling process of winning a Department of Defense (DoD) contract relied on human evaluators sifting through mountains of paper. Contractors navigated complex RFPs, crafted intricate narratives, and prayed their key messages resonated with a weary human panel.

Those days are over. The game has changed, and if you’re relying on the illusion of AI speed, your multi-million dollar proposal might just be flagged for deficiency by an algorithm.

The DoD is aggressively deploying RikAI, a cutting-edge Multimodal Large Language Model developed by Lazarus AI, to revolutionize and radically accelerate its proposal evaluation process. The DoD reports RikAI can accelerate proposal evaluations by a staggering 80% to 92%. This is not just about speed; it’s about establishing a new, unforgiving standard for explicit, verifiable compliance.

The AI Eye: What RikAI Sees (and What It Misses)

Imagine an evaluator who never gets tired, never misses a clause, and can instantly cross-reference your entire proposal against every line of a 500-page Request for Proposal (RFP). That’s RikAI. This system is capable of multimodal analysis:

• It reads your text: For contextual compliance and direct answers.
• It analyzes your tables and charts: Is the data formatted exactly as requested in Section L?
• It scrutinizes your images: Are they legible, captioned, and referenced correctly?

The era of “reading between the lines” is over. RikAI is built for explicit compliance. Its low hallucination rate, a feature highlighted by its developer, means it is incredibly good at finding where you failed to provide explicit, verifiable detail.

The Alarming Truth: Speed is the New Standard (and Hallucinations are Fatal)

The new, unforgiving tempo creates a dangerous reality. If your competitor has an accurate, AI-optimized proposal, they could be on the shortlist before your bid is fully processed.

But a dangerous counter-trend is emerging: many GovCons are turning to public-domain LLMs for easy compliance matrices and content generation, resulting in the “It Looks Really Good Syndrome.” These tools, when used without deep human context, introduce errors and hallucinations—false, yet believable, information.

ProposalHelper found multiple AI tools (including paid tools that claim to mine only non-public company data) made up non-existent past performances, un-real statistics, and performance metrics. As we discussed in our Blog “Who Wins the Pentagon’s Dollars? A Deep Dive into the Top Federal Contract Bidders,” past performances are one of the most important factors for high PWins in contracting. If RikAI’s logic is built to enforce compliance, it will be ruthless in flagging proposals built on the shaky foundation of unverified, AI-generated content.

The Only Counter-Measure: ProposalHelper’s Human-First, Zero-Hallucination Model

The stakes are too high to risk a machine flagging your bid due to a subtle error or an AI-generated hallucination. You need a strategy that puts human accountability first.

This is where the ProposalHelper model becomes essential. We provide the strategic counter-measure a Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) methodology that uses the irreplaceable expertise of human professionals to ensure absolute compliance and contextual accuracy, explicitly designed to successfully navigate the rigid, fact-checking criteria of the RikAI evaluator.

Our ProposalHelper model ensures superior quality by:

1. Human-Led Compliance Validation: We do not rely on specialized or public AI to create our compliance matrices. Expert human proposal developers actually read and interpret the RFP’s Section L and Section M. This critical step is the only way to challenge and eliminate the common hallucinations inherent in automated matrix generation, ensuring every single point is captured accurately and verifiably.
2. Multimodal Consistency Audit (The “Mimic” Check): Our process leverages public LLMs (like Gemini or GPT) as a secondary verification source alongside the human compliance check. This parallel verification allows us to mimic the function of RikAI. By having a separate machine check validate the human-built matrix, we test how a rigid machine logic would interpret the proposal. We flag areas where your text, data tables, or embedded visuals might appear ambiguous, illegible, or non-compliant to an AI.
3. Human-Prioritized Strategy and AI-Augmented Persuasion: Our human workforce prioritizes the core strategy, technical solutions, and persuasive arguments from the start. Because our experts have already established the precise compliance foundation, we can then use AI tools with accurate prompt engineering to improve the persuasion and flow of content. Compliance is the non-negotiable foundation; human-led strategy and AI-augmented writing are the differentiators that secure the win.

In an era where your proposal’s first “reader” might be an algorithm, the ProposalHelper HITL model provides the intelligence and zero-hallucination accuracy to ensure your bid is meticulously crafted to beat the machine gatekeeper with verifiable, human-led quality.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1: Is RikAI evaluating all DoD proposals?
A1: While RikAI is being aggressively deployed, particularly by the DoD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO), it is being integrated progressively. For high-volume, complex solicitations, an AI-assisted evaluation is quickly becoming the norm. The DoD relies on a multi-vendor strategy, not just Lazarus AI.

Q2: Will human evaluators still be involved, or is it fully automated?
A2: Human evaluators remain critical. RikAI acts as an “AI assistant,” significantly speeding up the initial triage and flagging process. This allows humans to focus on strategic decisions. However, the AI’s initial “scan” heavily influences which proposals pass to the human phase and where human focus is directed.

Q3: How does the ProposalHelper model address AI hallucinations?
A3: We address hallucinations by making the human the primary authority. Expert staff read the RFP and build the compliance framework first. We then use AI tools as a secondary, parallel check—a “devil’s advocate” or “mimic” system—to verify the human work and find any ambiguities, instead of relying on the AI to generate the compliance itself.

Q4: How can contractors adapt their writing style for AI evaluation?
A4: Focus on extreme clarity, directness, and explicit compliance. Use clear headings, simple sentence structures, and ensure every requirement from Sections L and M is addressed directly, not implicitly. All data in tables and charts must be crystal clear and clearly referenced in the text—write for the machine’s logic.

Q5: Is using AI for proposal evaluation fair?
A5: The DoD’s position is that AI enhances efficiency, transparency, and consistency in evaluations by ensuring strict adherence to the RFP and reducing human bias. RikAI is designed with explainability features to provide an audit trail for its findings.

References

1. Waring, J. (2024, February 21). DoD using AI to evaluate bids as quickly as possible. Federal News Network. [Placeholder for the exact URL of the FNN article or similar news source covering DoD’s use of RikAI].
2. DoD Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO). (n.d.). Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace. Retrieved from [Placeholder for CDAO Tradewinds link, e.g., https://cdao.mil/tradewinds/].
3. Lazarus AI. (n.d.). RikAI Multimodal LLM Product Information. [Placeholder for the most factual, public-facing information from Lazarus AI or a technical white paper describing RikAI’s function].

Deltek. (2025). How GovCons Can Use AI for Government Proposal Writing. Retrieved from [Placeholder for Deltek link or similar resource discussing AI compliance tools like GovWin IQ or ProPricer, which highlights the multi-vendor environment and the need for contractor-side AI].