Responsive has been at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI) development for more than a decade. From the beginning, we coupled AI with nearly every aspect of the Responsive Platform to introduce and then elevate Strategic Response Management (SRM) — the people, practices, and technology that unlock organizational knowledge for profitable growth.
AI has become integral to how organizations share and exchange information across bids and proposals, questionnaires, trust centers, and through on-demand knowledge hubs. Responsive’s industry-leading AI has helped teams deliver winning responses faster and scale with confidence — powered by trusted sources of truth for accurate and up-to-date content.
While AI is transforming how response teams work, trust and transparency remain critical as teams face the ever-mounting pressure to deliver accurate, high-quality responses at scale, all while meeting increasingly tight deadlines and compliance requirements.
Generative AI (GenAI) offers greater efficiency and convenience to meet these rising demands, but without a way to assess the quality of AI-generated content, responses can easily become unreliable, incomplete, or even misleading — putting deals, trust, and compliance at risk.
Introducing TRACE Score™ — Confidence in every AI response
That’s why we’re excited to introduce TRACE Score™, an industry-first scoring system and new standard for trust in AI. TRACE Score™ is a new, unique Responsive AI feature that evaluates every AI-generated response against five essential pillars of quality.
TRACE Score™ provides an objective, easy-to-understand 0–100 rating, along with detailed insights for each response. It’s a quality evaluation system built directly into your workflow to help you move faster without sacrificing integrity. TRACE Score™ will be shown across the entire platform whenever Responsive AI has been used to generate a response.
How TRACE Score™ works
Each AI-generated response is automatically assessed and assigned a TRACE Score™ from 0-100. The total score is made up of five components:
- Trustworthiness – Was the response generated using credible, authoritative sources?
- Relevance – Does the response directly answer the question asked?
- Accuracy – Are the facts, figures, and references correct?
- Completeness – Does the response fully resolve the question without gaps?
- Explainability – Is there clear and transparent reasoning and rationale for every response that can be easily traced back to the source?
A high TRACE Score™ indicates a reliable answer, though human review is still always encouraged for each answer. A lower score identifies areas that need greater review and revisions based on trustworthiness, relevance, accuracy, completeness, and/or explainability.
Lower individual factor scores highlight which aspects of a response need more attention or refinement, providing targeted guidance for improvement. For example, a low Trustworthiness score can indicate outdated sources that should be updated. A low Accuracy score indicates the response may include factual errors that should also be corrected.
In short, TRACE Score™ provides users with the information they need to quickly course-correct low scores to improve the overall accuracy and quality of responses. Once an answer is updated, users can refresh the score to see how changes have impacted the TRACE Score™.
Why we built TRACE Score™
ChatGPT and similar programs help us answer questions, generate copy, or even simplify vast amounts of content into a more digestible format. But with the ever-present disclaimer that GenAI can make mistakes or even hallucinate answers, there’s always doubt in unverifiable responses, even ones that seem accurate and confident.
Across all forms of strategic responses — from revenue-driving proposals to customer assessments and executive communication — there can be no room for doubt in AI-generated content when millions of dollars in revenue and brand trust are on the line.
Responsive customers (from proposal managers to compliance leads to C-suite decision-makers) are under pressure to respond faster, meet rising expectations, and minimize risk. AI can help alleviate many of these pain points, but only if you can trust the answers it provides.
"The problem isn’t getting AI to answer; it’s knowing if the answer’s legitimate. TRACE Score™ brings transparency to every response, so teams know exactly what they can trust."
AJ Sunder
Co-Founder and CTO of Responsive
By scoring Responsive AI-generated content across five dimensions and surfacing potential risks in real-time, TRACE Score™ allows your team to trust and confidently scale AI-generated content while preserving accuracy, transparency, and compliance. Plus, it helps you move through the pursuit cycle more efficiently, highlighting answers that need deeper review.
What TRACE Score™ means for your team
The Responsive TRACE Score™ was designed to be used across all teams involved in the pursuit lifecycle, directly benefiting each based on their goals and expectations — and the organization as a whole.
Proposal and bid teams
Submit responses faster, with fewer revisions. TRACE Score™ provides assurance that every answer meets compliance and content quality standards, reducing rework and manual QA.
Security and compliance teams
Protect organizational integrity and stay audit-ready. TRACE Score™ uncovers any answers that may lack reliable sourcing, factual accuracy, or regulatory alignment — before they become risks.
Sales and revenue leaders
Speed up deal cycles with confidence. TRACE Score™ elevates the overall accuracy and quality of AI-generated responses by displaying areas teams can focus on updating to improve low scores.
Executives and decision makers
Balance speed with strategic oversight. TRACE Score™ provides the clear visibility needed to scale AI efficiently without compromising trust or compliance. Gain confidence that every response from every team meets the same organizational standards for accuracy, transparency, and brand integrity.
What’s next for Responsive
TRACE Score™ represents a new standard for trust in AI-generated responses. It’s also a reflection of Responsive’s continued focus on industry-leading AI and ongoing innovation to transform how organizations manage strategic responses.
Earlier this year, we introduced Responsive AI agents to provide users with unparalleled intelligence to power bids, questionnaires, trust centers, and on-demand knowledge. And more agentic capabilities are on the horizon, poised to bring remarkable efficiencies throughout the pursuit lifecycle.
TRACE Score™. AI agents. These new introductions to the Responsive Platform reflect our goal to help organizations win more opportunities and grow their business with confidence. Stay tuned for more exciting innovations as we head further into 2025.