AI-led RFP automation has boosted win rates at Cognizant, says Babak Hodjat

Babak Hodjat, Chief AI Officer at Cognizant

Software services major Cognizant has improved its request-for-proposal win rates after deploying artificial intelligence and agent-based systems to automate key parts of the RFP process.

The Teaneck-headquartered company’s move to embed AI agents into RFP workflows has enhanced not just efficiency but also the quality and consistency of proposals, helping lift success rates in competitive deal situations.

“As we agentified our RFP system, a lot of these deals we are winning are simply because we are better,” Cognizant’s chief AI officer Babak Hodjat told Moneycontrol at the company’s India AI Lab in Bengaluru. “I can’t isolate it precisely but I’d like to think a meaningful part of the improvement in our hit rate is because the system is more efficient.”

The British computer scientist Hodjat was the co-founder and CEO of Sentient Technologies and was also a co-inventor of the technology that led to the development of Apple's virtual assistant Siri.

While AI has helped compress timelines in the RFP process, Hodjat said the more meaningful impact has been on quality rather than speed alone.

He added that the breadth of analysis possible through large language models (LLMs) and agent-based systems allows Cognizant to surface aspects of an RFP that human teams may overlook due to experience bias or over-indexing on familiar patterns.

Hodjat added that AI-driven systems can scan and reason across a wider set of inputs, improving the completeness and relevance of proposals submitted to clients.

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Hodjat cautioned that it is difficult to attribute improvements in hit rates solely to the Agentified RFP, as Cognizant has also been ahead of peers in broader AI adoption across the organisation.

However, he said internal tracking shows a clear improvement in success rates compared with earlier periods.

At the same time, the company has used AI to make the overall proposal process more efficient, helping teams respond faster while maintaining consistency across large and complex bids.

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The RFP automation effort is part of Cognizant’s wider push to embed AI across delivery and internal workflows.

Hodjat explained that the company is increasingly using multi-agent systems across functions, reflecting a broader shift in how AI is being operationalised within the enterprise.

He said the experience with RFPs shows a larger lesson for enterprises adopting AI, that gains are most visible when the technology is applied to end-to-end processes rather than isolated productivity tasks.

“A good chunk of the improvement in our hit rate comes from the system being able to look at the problem more broadly than a human-driven process,” Hodjat explained.

As clients increasingly evaluate vendors on their AI maturity, Hodjat said stronger, more consistent RFP responses also help position Cognizant as a partner that understands both technology and domain requirements.

While efficiency gains are important, the long-term advantage comes from improving decision-making and proposal quality, which ultimately translates into higher deal conversion rates, he said.