How AI tender evaluation works in Tender Navigator
Tender Navigator evaluates a tender by sending the tender notice and the filter's AI prompt to a large language model, which returns a verdict, Matched or Unmatched, and a short reasoning that explains the verdict against the prompt's criteria. Evaluation runs daily for every active filter and is never triggered by a search.
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The one-sentence version
Tender Navigator evaluates a tender against the criteria configured in your filter and your business description. The resulting evaluation explains why the tender appears relevant or irrelevant.
What is evaluated
Only tenders picked up by an active filter are evaluated. A filter's keywords, countries, classification codes, deadline offset and budget rule decide which new tenders it reads each day; each of those tenders is then evaluated once, by that filter. The Pre-search tool never evaluates anything, which is why its rows say Not evaluated.
The same tender can be evaluated by two different filters and receive two different verdicts, because each filter has its own prompt.
What the model receives
- The tender notice as Tender Navigator holds it: title, description, buyer country, dates, classification codes and the other fields shown on the tender page.
- The filter's AI prompt: your description of what makes a tender a good or bad fit. See Writing the AI prompt.
The model does not receive your account details, your other filters, or your past verdicts. It does not browse the procurement portal or open attached documents; it works from the notice text Tender Navigator ingested.
What the model returns
- A verdict: Matched or Unmatched.
- A reasoning: a short written explanation that refers to the criteria in your prompt.
Both are stored as a result and shown on the Results page, in the Tender Info panel, in the digest email and on a shared tender page. See Understanding Matched and Unmatched results.
Which model does the judging
Each filter chooses its LLM model from a list of general-purpose models from third-party providers. The default is the first model in the list. See Choosing the AI model. Tender Navigator's AI providers are listed in its sub-processor record, available on request from legal@synergysoft.ch, as the AI Transparency Notice explains.
When evaluation runs
Filtering and evaluation run daily for every active filter on every plan. There is no on-demand evaluation of a single notice: the Evaluate button on a search result explains this and offers Save as Filter instead. The digest email schedule is separate and only controls when results are emailed.
What it costs
Every evaluation counts against the evaluations included in your plan for the billing cycle. When they are used up, further tenders are recorded as stuck rather than evaluated. See Filter usage and limits.
What evaluation is not
AI evaluation is an advisory pre-screen. It does not decide whether to bid, does not check eligibility against the full tender documents, and can be wrong. The reasoning is there so that a person can check it quickly against the original notice. See Limitations of AI evaluation.
Related articles
- Writing the AI prompt for a filterHow to write the business criteria that Tender Navigator's AI evaluation judges every tender against: what to include, what to leave out, worked structure, and how to sharpen a prompt when verdicts look wrong.
- Understanding Matched and Unmatched resultsHow to read the Results page in Tender Navigator: the Matched and Unmatched verdicts, the reasoning, the filters and date range, the seven-day default window, and the actions on a result.
- Why a tender was matched or unmatchedHow to find out why Tender Navigator's AI marked a tender as Matched or Unmatched: the reasoning on the result, the filter snapshot it was judged against, and how to change future verdicts.
- Choosing the AI model for a filterThe LLM model setting on a Tender Navigator filter: which models are offered, what the default is, what changing the model does to existing results, and what happens to models that are retired.
- Limitations of AI evaluationWhat Tender Navigator's AI features can and cannot do, drawn from its AI Transparency Notice: advisory outputs, language and jurisdiction accuracy, regulatory recency, technical specifications, training bias and hallucination.