Corpus: AI bid/no-go and SOQ drafts for engineering firms
Corpus by SalemWise is page-cited AI for civil, structural, geotechnical, environmental, surveying and mining firms. It reads your project archive, suggests bid/no-go scores on a new RFQ with each scored factor linked to its sources, drafts the SOQ with page citations to check, and builds the fee with the math done by code. Arithmetic done in code is only as good as its inputs and formulas, so a qualified person still checks them. If the archive does not hold the answer, it is designed to say “Nothing on file.”
Most proposal AI reuses your old proposals. Corpus reads the projects themselves: geotech reports, calc packages, specs, bid tabs and drawings, and its answers and drafts carry citations you can open and check.
A citation shows you where to check; it is not an approval. Your qualified people approve the work.
A fictional sample firm’s archive, built from real public engineering documents: DOT plan sets, geotech reports, bid tabs, specs and real public RFQs.
Firm pursuit and delivery. Owner engineering and records review.
Work you can back with your own records
Fixed price, one real pursuit, about 2 to 3 weeks. Credited toward setup if you sign a deployment within 60 days of the pilot's end.
Turn your project records into cited qualifications drafts, fee builds and answers your engineers can check.
Today
- Current Bid or pass: Corpus suggests six of the nine go/no-go scores from your past work, a person accepts them or changes any of them, and fit, relationship and capacity are scored by people only.
- Current An SOQ draft for RFQ items 1 to 4 with page citations to check, marked GAP or NEEDS INPUT where your records fall short.
- Current A fee build on the WSDOT method that you can check line by line, with rates compared to GSA CALC+ ceiling-rate benchmarks (a snapshot).
- Current A draft contract, stamped DRAFT, made only from a fee the Principal role has approved.
During setup
- Set up for you Setting up each RFQ in Corpus; for the pilot it is inside the $5,000.
- Set up for you Connecting your network drive, SharePoint or ProjectWise. No connector is ready-made; each is built for your archive during setup.
Not built yet
- Proposed: not built yet A design-evidence packet or a calculation-review packet for a technical review.
Current Example: a specification question. Question: What watertightness testing standard and leakage limit apply to the containment concrete structures? Answer: ACI 350.1, Testing Reinforced Concrete Structures for Watertightness. The maximum leakage allowed in the final 24-hour test is 0.05 percent of the test volume, cited to 2020-EV288-STR-Spec, p. 7 (Evergreen Containment Basin). Fictional demo data: the firm, project and file name are invented; the specification behind the file is a real public document.
Current Evidence you get: a source panel with the file name, the real document title, project and category, page, issuing organization, the passage highlighted on the page image, an OCR tag on scanned pages and a link to the original. It does not show revision, approval status or effective date; your named reviewer confirms those and checks each source.
Corpus prepares cited drafts; your qualified people check them and approve the work.
Decisions you can trace to the standard and the record
There is no published price for the owner track. We tell you on the call whether we can work under your standard terms.
Your staff need to trace each consultant review and records decision to the approved standard and its edition.
Today
- Current Cited search over public standards and plan sets in the demo archive, including the 2014 and 2024 editions of the WSDOT Standard Specifications (M 41-10).
- Current Designed to say “Nothing on file” when nothing in the archive supports an answer.
- Current A restricted project is removed before search for the demo role that cannot open it.
During setup
- Set up for you Your standards, permit conditions and record drawings, loaded as a copy and indexed like any other PDF.
- Set up for you Connecting your document system. No connector is ready-made; each is built for your archive during setup.
Not built yet
- Proposed: not built yet A consultant-review packet that checks a consultant deliverable against your standards and records.
- Proposed: not built yet A fee-support packet that compares a consultant fee proposal with your fee method.
- Proposed: not built yet A permit matrix, a submittal comparison and a completeness review.
Proposed: not built yet Example: an edition check. Ask about a requirement that changed between the 2014 and 2024 editions of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) Standard Specifications, M 41-10, and get both editions cited so your reviewer records which one governs. Both editions are in the demo archive; an answer that compares them has not been built or captured yet.
Current Evidence you get: the same source panel for each cited document, and your owner reviewer, the engineer or records lead you name, decides what the record supports.
For owners, Corpus does not score or select consultants; selection and negotiation stay with authorized people.
Current Works in the product and the public demo today; not independently certified. Set up for you Set up for your archive during setup; not shown in the demo; not yet done for any customer. Proposed: not built yet Not built. We discuss it on the free 30-minute call; scope and price are agreed in writing as paid work.
→ What each label means: capability statusOne RFQ, four jobs, all answered from your own work.
Bid or pass
A new RFQ arrives. Corpus reads it and suggests go / no-go scores against your past projects: similar scope, client, location and discipline.
- Each suggested score linked to the pages behind it
- Fit, relationship and capacity stay your call; the verdict comes when your team has scored all nine
Draft the SOQ
Corpus pulls your most relevant projects and drafts the SOQ sections from them.
- Each sentence is written to carry a page citation; open each citation, because the software does not check that every sentence is supported.
- A draft your team edits, reviews and signs off
Price it and paper it
Build a cost-plus-fixed-fee estimate; the demo follows WSDOT’s method. The fee math is done by code, not by the AI. Arithmetic done in code is only as good as its inputs and formulas, so a qualified person still checks them.
- A fee build you can check line by line
- A draft contract to start from: a draft, not legal advice
Who sees what
Restricted projects are left out of search for roles that cannot open them; at setup, roles are mapped to your people. Set up for you No connector is ready-made; each is built for your archive during setup.
- Nobody gets an answer drawn from a file their role cannot open
- The same rule applies to the SOQ and fee tools
What watertightness testing standard and leakage limit apply to the containment concrete structures?
ACI 350.1, Testing Reinforced Concrete Structures for Watertightness. The maximum leakage allowed in the final 24-hour test is 0.05 percent of the test volume [1]
What liner thickness did we carry for the Harborview digester dome?
Answers come with source passages you can open and check.
- Engineers ask plain questions of the archive: past designs, specs, geotech findings, what the client asked for last time.
- Each answer lists the passages retrieved for it, so they can be opened and checked against the answer.
- If nothing in the archive supports an answer, Corpus is designed to say “Nothing on file” instead of guessing.
Both questions are on the live demo: a fictional sample firm, real public documents.
What a citation shows today, and what it does not show yet
Fields marked Proposed are not on the citation yet, so your reviewer confirms them from the record.
→ What Corpus does today, capability by capabilityCurrent On a citation today
Fictional demo data: [1] Source: 2020-EV288-STR-Spec · p. 7 (Evergreen Containment Basin) is how the demo files a real TxDOT 2024 special specification.
- File name (in the demo it carries a fictional year)
- Real document title
- Project and category
- Page, with the page image and the passage highlighted
- Issuing organization
- OCR tag on pages read by OCR
- Original link to the public source
- GAP markers, and “Nothing on file” when nothing supports an answer
Not on a citation yet
A field Corpus does not show is a field your reviewer has to confirm.
- Proposed: not built yet Record owner
- Proposed: not built yet Revision
- Proposed: not built yet Approval status
- Proposed: not built yet Jurisdiction
- Proposed: not built yet Effective date
- Proposed: not built yet Retrieval date
- Proposed: not built yet Index freshness
Case-law citations in the demo have no page image, no original link and no source panel.
Your files stay where you decide.
→ Each copy of your files, where it lives, and how it is deletedCloud-agnostic: your hardware, your cloud or ours
Set up for you Corpus is cloud-agnostic. It runs on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or your own servers, including a local NVIDIA GPU on your network, or on ours. It uses an open-weight model and no outside AI service. On-prem, your files never leave your office.
Access trimmed by role
Permissions are applied before search, not after. Restricted projects are removed before search: litigation holds and walled-off jobs are left out, and answers only draw on files the asking role is allowed to open. In the demo the roles are illustrative and anyone can switch them; at setup they are mapped to your people (identity mapping). Set up for you No connector is ready-made; each is built for your archive during setup.
Connected at setup
In the full deployment we connect Corpus to your archive where it lives: network drive, SharePoint, ProjectWise or whatever you use. It runs in the browser, and we connect Microsoft Teams during setup if you want it there. We do the integration work inside your network; your IT lead grants access and signs off. Set up for you No connector is ready-made; each is built for your archive during setup.
No customer logos yet. Here is what you can check today.
The live demo
57 public engineering documents, filed under a fictional sample firm: DOT plan sets, geotech reports, specs, bid tabs and real public RFQs. Ask it anything.
The page citations
Click a cited project document and its page opens with the passage highlighted. Case-law citations have no page image.
The refusals
Ask about work that is not in the archive and it is designed to say “Nothing on file”.
The permission trim
Switch from the engineer to the principal: the restricted project appears only for the role allowed to open it. Demo roles are illustrative and anyone can switch them.
The fee math
Done by code, line by line, not by the AI. Arithmetic done in code is only as good as its inputs and formulas, so a qualified person still checks them.
The price
$5,000 fixed for the pilot, credited toward setup if you sign a deployment within 60 days of the pilot's end. You judge it on your own RFQ.
Other work that runs on documents.
Corpus is AI search over your own files, cited to the page. Engineering firms are our first, worked-out example. The same search fits other organizations with a lot of documents. We have no customers in these industries yet, and the demo is built on engineering documents.
- Law firms: search across past matters, contracts and briefs, cited to the page
- Insurance: search across policy forms, claims files and underwriting guidelines, cited to the page
- CPA and consulting firms: search across engagement files, workpapers and past proposals, cited to the page
- Property management: search across leases, management agreements, governing documents and minutes, cited to the page
- Public agencies and utilities: search across plans, permits, standards, RFPs and records, cited to the page
- Architecture and construction: search across specs, submittals, RFIs and past project files, cited to the page
Two steps. The first one is credited.
- We load a copy of up to 3 years of your project PDFs
- We run your next real RFQ through Corpus: go/no-go, SOQ draft, fee build
- You judge it on your own pursuit
- No integration work in the pilot
The $5,000 is credited toward setup if you sign a deployment within 60 days of the pilot's end.
- Set up for you Deployed on your archive where it lives. In the browser; your network drive, SharePoint or ProjectWise, and Microsoft Teams connected during setup. No connector is ready-made; each is built for your archive during setup.
- Set up for you Cloud-agnostic: runs on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or your own servers, or on ours
- Live 6 to 8 weeks after the deployment agreement is signed. No per-user fees
The questions principals ask, answered in plain words.
- How to find past projects and résumés for an SOQ without days of digging
- How do I search old project folders and scanned drawings?
- How to get answers from your project archive with page citations
- How to decide go/no-go on an RFQ faster
- How to find who worked on which past project for SOQ key staff
- How to build a fee from past projects and past fee estimates
Straight answers to what firms ask first.
What is Corpus?
Corpus by SalemWise is page-cited AI for civil, structural, geotechnical, environmental, surveying and mining firms. It suggests bid/no-go scores on a new RFQ, drafts SOQ sections and builds the fee from the firm’s own past projects, with document and page citations to check.
How much does Corpus cost?
A $5,000 fixed-price pilot on one real pursuit (about 2 to 3 weeks), credited toward setup if you sign a deployment within 60 days of the pilot's end. Full deployment is from $21,000 setup, then $1,500–$2,000/mo, with no per-user fees.
We already use a proposal tool. Why add Corpus?
Keep it. Proposal tools are built around your past proposals, photos and resumes. Corpus works one layer down: it reads the project files themselves (geotech reports, calc packages, specs, bid tabs and drawings) and gives your proposal team cited facts and a first SOQ draft to carry into the tool you already use.
We already have Microsoft 365 Copilot. Isn’t that enough?
Copilot is a strong general assistant. Corpus answers from your archive, with document-and-page citations, and is designed to say “Nothing on file” when the answer is not there. Firms can keep both.
Our archive is on a network drive, not SharePoint.
That is fine. The full deployment connects to the archive where it lives, including a network drive. Set up for you No connector is ready-made; each is built for your archive during setup. The pilot does not need any connection: it uses a copy of a slice of your project PDFs.
What does the $5,000 pilot include?
A fixed price and about 2 to 3 weeks. We load a copy of up to 3 years of your project PDFs and run the RFQ you are pursuing now through Corpus: a go / no-go scorecard with suggested scores linked to their sources, an SOQ draft with page citations to check, and a fee build with the fee math done by code. Arithmetic done in code is only as good as its inputs and formulas, so a qualified person still checks them. Your team also gets a hands-on session on its own archive. There are no integrations and no production rollout, and the $5,000 is credited toward setup if you sign a deployment within 60 days of the pilot's end.
Where do our files go?
Set up for you Corpus is cloud-agnostic. It runs on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or your own servers. On your hardware, Corpus runs on a local NVIDIA GPU on your network and your files stay in your office. Hosted with us, they are processed on our own servers. Either way it uses an open-weight model and nothing goes to a public AI API. In the pilot, your files are never used to train or fine-tune a model. In full deployment, fine-tuning on your files happens only if you agree in writing. We don't have a SOC 2 report, which is one reason you can choose your own hardware.
What if Corpus gets something wrong?
Each answer lists the passages retrieved for it, so your engineer opens them and checks the answer. If nothing in the archive supports an answer, Corpus is designed to say “Nothing on file” instead of guessing. Corpus drafts and cites; it does not decide. Before anyone relies on a draft, your qualified people check the sources behind it, the numbers and the assumptions, settle what is missing or disputed, and approve the exact version the project decision rests on. The fee math is done by code, not by the model. Arithmetic done in code is only as good as its inputs and formulas, so a qualified person still checks them. Fee arithmetic done in code is not a check of an engineering calculation; neither proves the inputs or the method. The SOQ is a draft your team edits and signs off. Only the Principal role can approve a fee; Corpus records who approved (in the demo, the fictional Principal), the total and the time, and editing the fee clears the approval. Set up for you tying roles to named people is part of full-deployment setup. Corpus does not check hydraulic, structural or other engineering calculations; your engineers do.
What does the software enforce, and what is left to our own procedure?
Enforced by the software: Only the Principal role can approve a fee, and the server enforces it. Corpus stores who approved, the fee total and the time; the time is not shown. Editing the fee clears its approval. If the total changes, the fee shows “approval out of date” until it is approved again. The contract draft is generated only from an approved fee, and its PDF stays blocked until then. A go/no-go verdict appears only after all nine criteria are scored. Corpus suggests six scores, and a person accepts them or changes any of them; fit, relationship and capacity are scored only by people. A restricted project is removed before search for any role that may not open it. Set up for you In the demo any visitor can switch roles. Tying each role to your named people is identity mapping, set up for you and not yet done for any customer. No connector is ready-made; each is built for your archive during setup. Left to your procedure: Reviewing and signing off the SOQ draft. Corpus has no sign-off step and no SOQ export. Checking each answer against the pages it cites before anyone relies on it. Deciding which standards and editions apply to the project. Naming an owner for each gap and deciding how it is resolved. Final submission to the client or owner, and any signature or seal your project and jurisdiction require. Corpus applies neither.
→ How your people review Corpus output, step by stepHow much IT time does it take?
The pilot needs four things from your side: up to 3 years of your project PDFs (we work from a copy); the RFQ you are pursuing now; one 30-minute kickoff; and one review call at the end. Plan on about 4 hours of your team's time in total, plus the review call. Nothing is installed and nothing connects to your systems unless you choose to run the pilot on a GPU box on your network. In the full deployment we build the connection to your network drive, SharePoint or ProjectWise ourselves, inside your network. Your IT lead grants access and reviews what we set up. Set up for you No connector is ready-made; each is built for your archive during setup.
Can it read our scanned drawings?
Set up for you scanned sheets are OCR’d as part of setup, so they can be searched and cited like the rest of the archive. For the pilot, text-searchable PDFs work best; tell us about the scans you care about and we will plan around them.
Why not just use Deltek Dela?
Dela is good at what lives in Vantagepoint: projects, clients, staff and financials. It does not read the drawings, calc packages and geotech reports on your file share. Corpus does, with citations you can open and check. Firms can keep both.
Is $21,000 worth it?
Honest answer: that is what the pilot is for. Run one real pursuit through Corpus for $5,000, then decide. The $5,000 is credited toward setup if you sign a deployment within 60 days of the pilot's end, and there are no per-user fees.
Already looking at a proposal or resume tool?
Proposal and resume tools work from past proposals, resumes and marketing content. Corpus works from the project record and cites the page. These side-by-side guides say plainly when the other tool is the better fit, and how to test both on one real RFQ.
- Corpus vs OpenAsset: marketing assets or the project record
- Corpus vs Unanet ProposalAI: proposal content or project files
- Corpus vs Flowcase (formerly CV Partner): resumes or project files
- Corpus vs Kantiv (formerly Joist AI): proposal platform or page citations
- Corpus vs SOQDraft: an imported project list or the files themselves
Run your next RFQ through Corpus.
A fixed-price pilot on a real pursuit, judged by your team. $5,000, credited toward setup if you sign a deployment within 60 days of the pilot's end.