Advice to Teams on Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Submissions

Use AI to enhance creativity, not displace it!

Teams may use any technology that a consulting company might use in responding to a request for proposals or producing an evaluation report. This includes artificial intelligence tools that generate text or images.

Caution is advised

Clients of evaluation consultants, and WECC judges, are unlikely to be impressed with submissions that indicate an indiscriminate use of AI.  Be aware of the following signs of AI-generated text. They may affect the judgment of your team’s submission.

References provided by an AI chatbot

Team members should act as professional evaluation consultants working on a practical proposal for submission to the managers of an organization. References are not necessary and, if provided to a client, are not useful unless the client can access them through a link.

References produced by a chatbot will often be of a general nature, for example a book by a well-known evaluation expert with no page number specified. If you decide that a reference is essential, provide a link to it and indicate a locator such as a page number or a time within a video or sound recording.

Overly general content

AI can produce text that gives the appearance of mastery of a topic but on close inspection appears to be limited to high-level, general information. That is not what judges are looking for. They want to see evidence that the team understands the needs of the client organization and can offer specific, practical suggestions.

Repetition of particular words or concepts

In responding to a user's request or question, a chatbot may tend to repeat words, or use words that seem unnatural in the context of a WECC submission. AI-generated text may not reflect the careful choice of words with which a serious writer tries to engage the reader’s attention.

Irrelevant or incorrect information

Content produced by AI is not always reliable. Incorrect or irrelevant text in a submission will not impress the judges.

Text recurring in various submissions

WECC judges value evidence of originality and creativity in a submission. When they encounter highly similar, generalized content in a number of submissions, they may lose confidence in the teams’ ability to use AI creatively.

 AI-generated images, charts or graphs

In addition to chatbots for text writing, there is AI software for generating charts and graphs.

Automated chart and graph generators may not effectively reflect the point or concept that the team wishes to communicate.

The output of current AI visualization tools may be difficult to edit, so issues such as visual clutter are not easily resolved.

Edit!

Allow a significant amount of time for editing your submission

Allow ample time for editing the team’s submission. Ensure that the submission does not appear as a patchwork of AI-generated text and images. It should directly respond to the requirements of the case, avoid repetition, provide detail where appropriate, be engaging and use carefully chosen words and images.

August 2025