The global Professional Services market size is estimated to grow by USD 2.08 trillion from 2024-2028, according to Technavio. This market is experiencing significant growth due to the digitization of business processes.
Within North America, the professional services market is undergoing substantial growth, fueled by the increasing adoption of digital technologies. In 2022, the US and Canada led this trend, investing heavily to improve digital capabilities and service delivery.
Meanwhile, internally, AI-driven solutions are just beginning to reshape the roles of proposal professionals in the professional services market, streamlining their processes and boosting productivity.
Our latest benchmark report, The 9th Annual Proposal Management Survey, polled organizations of varying sizes—the majority with more than 1,000 employees and greater than $100M revenue (2023)—from multiple industries spread predominantly across Professional Services (accounting,
consulting, staffing), Legal, IT Services and SaaS, and Architecture,
Engineering and Construction (AEC). Professional Services encompassed 26% of responses.
So, let’s dig into the insights from Professional Services organizations from 2024 – and what we can expect in 2025.
Professional Services Pitch Volume is on the Rise
Across all sectors, organizations took a proactive approach to pitching clients and driving new business, though not as assertively as in 2023. The volume has slowed, with a 7% decline in year-over-year (YoY) growth compared to the previous year. Despite this, 54% of respondents still reported an increase in their pitching volume.
Within the 54% of organizations that reported an increase in pitch volume, 62% of Professional Services experienced a pitching volume increase in 2024.
The State of RFPs for Professional Services
Respondents to this year’s survey personally work on an average of seven RFPs per month, with the majority working on anywhere from one to nine RFPs in a month. The majority of Professional Services respondents worked on 1-2 (31%) and 3-4 RFPs (31%) per month. At the other end of the spectrum 8% worked on over 25 RFPs per month.
The People Factor
In 2024, half of those surveyed reported that 10 or fewer people contributed to the response process at their organization. However, Professional Services organizations reported a median of 13 employees. This larger number may be due to a more cautious approach to the adoption of AI-driven solutions.
Top Challenges
Across the industry verticals, challenges with SMEs meeting schedule and delivery deadlines are a notable roadblock. While also dealing with SME input challenges, respondents from Professional Services (54%), ranked time spent locating, organizing and updating content as the major challenge they faced, tied with creating content from scratch/getting started.
Technology Choices
Within the industry breakouts (Legal, Professional Services, AEC, IT services), Microsoft Word was the leading choice across all groups, preferred by 63%, with PowerPoint and Excel checking in at 16% each.
Copilot (42%) was the primary GenAI choice across all industries surveyed (Professional Services, Legal, AEC, Technical Services), however, 19% of professional services have not yet adopted GenAI software.
AI Proposal Management Software in Professional Services
Organizations across all industries have realized the value of AI-powered proposal management software to drive their response process, helping to increase win rates, scale response production, and gather actionable insights into client engagement. In fact, the majority of survey respondents (80%) reported using proposal management software to power their response process—up from 61% in 2023—vs. 14% without and 4% considering bringing proposal automation software onboard.
However, Professional Services (non-legal) continued to lag slightly behind the average, with only 69% of respondents using the software.
AI technology is continuing to disrupt the proposal management space—84% of Professional Services leaders say they feel the pressure to boost AI adoption. As it stands, many in the professional services field are still in the early stages of forming their own perspectives on its applications and future potential.
Looking Forward to 2025
Generative AI (GenAI) has evolved beyond a mere industry trend, becoming a transformative force in modern business. In just a few years, it has reshaped financial strategies, long-term investments, and workforce development in ways that once seemed improbable.
The Professional Services sector is no exception to this shift. Adoption has been more one of “wait and see,” so the true extent of GenAI’s influence on the industry is still unfolding. However, here’s how we see GenAI could redefine work for professional services folks involved in RFPs, pitches and presentations in 2025.
Continued Uptake: As Professional Service organizations continue to refine their approach to proposals and RFPs. We expect to see a continued increase in pitching and growing reliance on proposal management software.
Reducing the Mundane: AI appears to be poised to subsume a lot of the repeatable tasks currently bogging down RFP professionals, particularly around content creation and editing/proofreading.
Doing More with Less: With the current escalating geopolitical upheaval rippling across global supply chains, and continuing economic uncertainty, all employees will be expected to meet their targets without any additional hires. AI can do much of the heavy lifting in terms of RFP responses and pitches, enabling BD and marketing teams to focus on personalization and differentiation.
The Final Word
In the year ahead, GenAI will continue to make inroads, and Professional Service organizations will need to embrace it to remain competitive. As these organizations focus on streamlining and improving efficiency in business development efforts, AI-driven proposal software can be a huge boon in terms of productivity and decision-making.
If you are looking to create proposals that win, in a fraction of the time, schedule a one-on-one demo of our award-winning proposal automation software today.
