Don’t Risk Compliance – Why Dedicated AI Matters

In the rush to respond to more RFPs, too many proposal teams are turning to tools that weren’t built for government contracting. Generic AI like ChatGPT has made it easier to write quickly — but not accurately. And when it comes to public sector bidding, that’s a serious risk.

Compliance isn’t just a checklist — it’s a contract gatekeeper. If your proposal misses a required clause, misquotes a regulation, or even slightly misaligns its format, evaluators often toss it out before reading past page one. As one industry veteran put it:

“The federal contracting press delights in the stories of a $50 million-dollar contract lost because the proposal exceeded the page count requirement in the RFP. Non-compliance is the biggest reason why proposals are rejected.” -Federal contracting consultant

⚠️ Generic AI  Doesn’t Understand Compliance

Let’s be clear: automation can improve accuracy. But only when it’s designed to understand federal or SLED requirements. General-purpose LLMs may know how to write fluent text, but they don’t know how to:

• Parse Section L and M instructions accurately
• Build a FAR/DFARS-aligned compliance matrix
• Flag formatting violations that trigger disqualifications
• Track sources and insert verifiable citations

Even worse, public tools like ChatGPT have been caught hallucinating details in proposals. One of our clients told us their previous AI tool confidently stated that their firm offered “underwater drone choreography.” It sounded impressive — but their company builds enterprise software. They scrapped the draft and started over.

✅ Mitigation: Use AI trained on GovCon rules

McCarren’s AI was built for government contracting from the start. So, it:

• Accurately auto-generates FAR/DFARS-aligned compliance matrices
• Flags formatting violations before they trigger disqualifications
• Structures every response to trace back to Section L & M

Automation can drive accuracy — but only when it deeply understands the rules.

⚠️ Proposals That Sound Machine-Written

ChatGPT-style responses might save time, but they come off generic, padded, and robotic. Evaluators can spot AI-written filler instantly — and often score it low.

“We’re drowning in bids that all sound the same.”

✅ Mitigation: Maintain voice and structure with human-AI collaboration

McCarren ensures your proposals sound clear, not canned. It:

• Reuses your organization’s tone and approved past responses
• Annotates compliance logic without breaking narrative flow
• Generates drafts with your unique style and voice, not boilerplate

The best proposals aren’t written by AI. They’re written with AI. There’s a big difference.

⚠️ Data Security and Confidentiality

Another major concern is data security and confidentiality when using public AI platforms. Government proposals often involve sensitive, proprietary, or export-controlled information — from pricing sheets to staffing details. Feeding this data into tools like ChatGPT can violate contract regulations or trigger exposure risks.

That’s why organizations like the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) explicitly banned employees from using ChatGPT, citing in an internal memo:

“ChatGPT’s unrestricted approach to reusing input data poses an unacceptable risk to NARA data security.”

✅ Mitigation: Contain content inside a secure, GovCon-specific platform

Proposal consultants stress the importance of secure, private AI environments for this reason. Unlike open systems, GovCon-specific AI platforms operate with encryption, access controls, and zero data commingling.

“Most proposal-specific AI software is not open AI, which means more privacy… important when you have budgets, plans, and sensitive info that need discretion.” — Holly Rustick, grant writing expert and bestselling author

McCarren’s AI Agents:

• Never trains on your proposal data
• Operates in secure cloud environment
• Uses encryption, tenant separation, and zero commingling

Your data stays yours. Full stop.

⚠️ Generic AI That Doesn’t Know You

Generic models might be trained on the internet — but not on your library, your language, or your win themes. Unless you copy-paste everything into the prompt (and re-tag it every time), it forgets who you are.

✅ Mitigation: Use company-specific AI

McCarren pulls from your own content library — including prior proposals, past performance, bios, and boilerplate. It remembers what works, what was approved, and how your team writes

Final Thought

When the difference between winning and losing is one misstep — one missed clause or wrong file name — you can’t afford generic tools. You need automation that understands the rules, not just the language.

👉 Want to automate without compromise? Explore McCarren

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