The proposal is full of confident technical terms. You understand the objective, but not which parts affect cost, operating responsibility or the work your team must provide.
Use AI to prepare plain-language explanations and business questions from a technical proposal. Keep the original terms and source passages beside the explanation. Simplifying the wording should make the decision clearer without pretending the technical judgement has been completed.
Photo by TECNIC Bioprocess Solutions on Unsplash.
Start with the decision you own
List what you need to decide and what requires a qualified technical person. A business owner may need to agree an operating model without being the person who validates a system design.
For an illustrative software proposal, the relevant questions could include who maintains the connection, what happens when an input is missing and which internal work is excluded from the supplier's scope.
Do not ask the assistant whether the proposal is good in the abstract. Give it the business context and the decisions that need explanation.
Use a term-to-question worksheet
For each important phrase, capture:
Exact term and source passage.
Proposed plain-language explanation.
What this changes for the business.
Assumptions the explanation depends on.
A question for the supplier or technical reviewer.
The evidence needed before deciding.
Ask the tool to mark uncertain interpretations. It should not silently choose one meaning where a term is ambiguous or used inconsistently.
Government plain-language guidance supports explaining necessary technical terms when first used. That principle helps readability; it does not validate the technical content of the proposal.
An illustrative integration claim
Suppose the supplier promises a seamless integration. Ask what information moves, in which direction, how often and what happens when the receiving system rejects it.
The phrase becomes a set of answerable operating questions. A plain-language paraphrase such as the systems work together would remain too vague to support the decision.
Keep the supplier's actual response separate from the assistant's suggested explanation. The person making the commitment must confirm what the wording means in this engagement.
Preserve conditions and exclusions
Simplification often removes the clauses that matter. Ask specifically about prerequisites, recurring responsibilities, volume limits and assumptions about the client's data or staff.
If an explanation uses a metaphor, check where the comparison stops being accurate. A useful analogy can introduce a concept without replacing the actual requirements.
Take questions to the right person
Group questions by business ownership, technical verification and commercial clarification. This makes the next discussion more focused and prevents the founder from becoming the interpreter for every detail.
Keep answers with the relevant proposal version. If the supplier revises the document, check whether the clarification still applies.
The useful output is a clearer decision pack and a shorter list of unresolved questions. It is not an AI endorsement, a substitute for specialist review or permission to accept terms nobody has understood.
For related practical guidance, see preparing business software requirements and questioning an implementation partner.
Hili Consulting can help translate technical proposal language into practical business questions. Arrange a free 30-minute consultation and bring one example of the work you want to improve.
