Five kinds of provider do this work: the AI your firm already licenses, automation agencies and agent platforms, pitch and RFP software, AI strategy consultancies, and consultancies that build bespoke BD advisors. They differ in what they change: hours, drafts, margins or the way the firm pitches. Ask any of them which one, and for the evidence.
Start from the problem
What kinds of provider build AI for BD?
The do-it-yourself option is the AI the firm has already approved, such as Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT Enterprise, with the team writing its own prompts. Everyone else is a supplier, and the table names some of them. The descriptions come from each provider’s own site, checked on 9 October 2026. Taleist wrote this page and appears in it.
| Provider | Kind | What its own site says it does | Which part of BD it touches |
|---|---|---|---|
| MindStudio | Agent platform | A no-code platform for building AI agents, for anyone from small teams to large enterprises. | General purpose. Sales is one use your team can build. |
| Aivy | Automation agency | Fixed-scope automation projects for Australian mid-market businesses, including accounting and professional services firms. | Mostly not BD: documents, finance, chatbots, plus visibility in AI search. |
| Centric/AI | Automation agency | Custom AI and automation that helps professional services firms cut overheads. | Mostly operations. Proposal generation is one use case. |
| IOTAI | Automation agency | AI agents and workflows for Australian businesses, usually delivered in two to four weeks, then managed. | Not specifically BD. |
| NxtLayr AI | Automation agency | An AI workforce that takes quotes, notes, CRM updates and proposals off staff, with human review, for Australian finance and professional services firms among others. | Proposal and CRM drafting. |
| QorusDocs, Loopio, Responsive, Ikaun | Pitch and RFP software | Software that drafts proposals and tender answers from the firm’s approved content. Ikaun is built for law firms and architecture, engineering and construction firms. | Drafting speed. Several also report higher win rates for their customers. |
| Maybank Advisors | AI strategy consultancy | Rebuilds how professional services firms produce and price their work, so AI efficiency becomes margin, capacity or deliberate pricing rather than a client discount. | Not BD. Firm economics. |
| Taleist | Bespoke BD advisor | Redesigns how the firm pitches, then builds advisors for pitches, proposals and practice groups, running inside the AI the firm has already approved. | The pitch method, then the drafting. |
Which kind fits which firm?
The AI you already license
This fits a firm whose team will write and maintain its own prompts. It adds no new supplier. The limit is the author: the output is only as good as whoever wrote the prompt, and nobody retests it when the model changes. If you go this way, give one person the prompt library and have them retest it each time the model updates.
Automation agencies and agent platforms
These fit a firm whose cost sits in repetitive work: documents, reconciliations, data entry, routine email. They take hours out. They also take the firm’s process as given, so a BD process that loses pitches will lose them in fewer hours. Use them on the work that isn’t about winning, and fix the pitch process before anyone automates it.
Pitch and RFP software
This fits a firm whose bottleneck is assembling credentials and approved answers. The tools draft from what the firm has already written. If that material talks about the firm rather than the client, the drafts will too. Rewrite the model answers around what clients look for before you load them, and ask the vendor for win-rate evidence from firms like yours.
AI strategy consultancies
These fit a firm deciding where AI should change how it produces and prices its work. Maybank Advisors, for one, works on making sure AI efficiency turns into margin, capacity or deliberate pricing rather than leaking to clients. That is a question about the firm’s economics. Winning the next client is a separate question, and it needs its own answer.
Bespoke BD advisors
These fit a firm whose problem is the pitches it loses. The provider redesigns how the firm pitches, then builds the AI around the new method. Taleist is the example we know best, and it calls this consulting-grade AI: an advisor built on the firm’s knowledge and the craft of persuasion, running inside the AI the firm has already approved. Taleist reports that Searchlight Group, a recruitment firm pitching to government and not-for-profit evaluation committees, won 35% of its proposals before the work and 85% in 2025, and that each proposal now takes two hours instead of six. Taleist is also contributing to a pitch tool for a global law firm, which it can’t name.
It is the wrong choice for a firm that only wants hours back. An automation agency fits that job better.
What should you ask a provider before you hire one?
- Which part of our BD does this change: the hours, the drafts or the result?
- What does it draft from, and who checks that material is good enough to reuse?
- Can you show us a before and after from a firm like ours, with the result?
- How will we measure the return, and against what baseline?
- What will it cost, and is the fee fixed against a defined scope?
- What happens when the AI model underneath changes, and who retests the work?
Sources: provider descriptions from each provider’s website, 9 October 2026. Searchlight Group results as reported by Taleist on taleist.agency.