Finding Strategic Opportunities in Flat Federal IT Budgets

November 25, 2020 by Leave a comment

By Jessica Parks, Analyst

While federal agencies are currently making do with their FY20 budgets for IT, the end date for the current continuing resolution looms on December 11. A few agencies, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, have requested a significant uptick in FY21 IT funding for large ongoing projects. However, for other agencies such as Treasury, Justice and Homeland Security, IT funding will remain steady or even drop a bit.

It is important to keep in mind that “steady” does not automatically equal a drop in opportunities. The mission continues regardless, and the focus is going to be on working smarter and more efficiently. Here are three focus points to consider when your customer is looking to squeeze every drop out of a flat IT budget.

1) Automation and Machine Learning Solutions

Departments across the entire federal government, both defense and civilian, are already incorporating automated solutions to make their employees’ lives easier. To work within tight budgets and (sometimes) shrinking workforces,  departments are automating business processes, parts of customer service operations and some cyber operations. The goal is not just speed, but also efficiency and accuracy. Read more of this post

Filed under Market Intelligence, Sales Tagged with , , , , ,

AI in DOD: Three Places to Get Started

February 21, 2019 by Leave a comment

Stephanie Meloni

By Stephanie Meloni, Market Intelligence Manager

The Department of Defense is considering artificial intelligence for everything from improved maintenance and repair of weapons systems to supply chain management and improving business processes. Industry can expect to see exponential growth once implementation takes off.

Consider Project Maven, for example. The DOD’s AI solution for analyzing imagery for intel purposes, has seen funding grow from $16 million in fiscal 2018 to $93 million in fiscal 2019 — a 480 percent increase!

Central to DOD’s AI implementation efforts is the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. JAIC was created quickly to ensure that DOD effectively and ethically builds out its AI capabilities. The organization will look at AI cross-domain solutions across the service branches, as well as specific component projects.

Read more of this post

Filed under Market Intelligence, Sales Tagged with , , , , ,

How the DOD’s FY19 Modernization Priorities Align to Technology

October 17, 2018 by 1 Comment

Stephanie MeloniGlobal communication concept. Technological abstract background.

By Stephanie Meloni, consultant

The Department of Defense continues to evolve at a fast pace to modernize and stay ahead of adversarial threats. This past year has brought many changes in terms of organizations within the DOD. To name a few, we have the Army Futures Command, the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and the Defense Innovation Unit, that dropped the “X” (for experimental), to imply its permanent role in helping the DOD stay on the cutting edge of technology.

These organizational shifts and changes show the DOD’s response to the changing warfighting environment. Last year, much of the priority was on restoring readiness—now the Department has shifted to modernization. Increases in budget (and actual appropriations) are allowing decision makers to more strategically align funds to the investment priorities that need the most attention. IT spending is set to peak in FY19, so it will be a critical year for technology companies to come in and help the DOD with solutions that will help them stay focused on modernization. Here are just a few of those priorities: Read more of this post

Filed under Market Intelligence, Sales Tagged with , , , , , ,

Time to Start a New Conversation About AI in Government

September 12, 2018 by Leave a comment

Lloyd McCoy Jr.

By Lloyd McCoy, Marketing Intelligence Manager

Artificial Intelligence is becoming a topic of real interest to federal and SLED governments. Companies that sell storage solutions, automation, big data, security and data mining tools should be encouraged to start a new conversation with their clients and prospects. Here are some of the drivers behind AI in government.

Dramatic cost savings
According to Deloitte, low-investment AI could improve human task speeds up to 20 percent. That would save 96.7 million human hours annually in government. A high investment in AI could save well over one billion human hours per year.

Read more of this post

Filed under Market Intelligence, Sales Tagged with , , , , ,

How NASA is Dealing With Their REALLY BIG Data

August 7, 2018 by Leave a comment

Tom O'KeefeBy Tom O’Keefe, consultant

Big Data and artificial intelligence are top of mind at NASA this summer. The agency has always collected, sorted, and stored a massive amount of data and made that data available to the public. Now, it’s looking to leverage big data tools to better understand more of the huge volumes of information it has at its fingertips

The focus is on increasing efficiency wherever possible, and it’s this approach you should keep in mind when you’re talking to NASA this year. Here’s what NASA is going to be working on, so make sure you’re tailoring your message appropriately:

Read more of this post

Filed under Market Intelligence, Sales Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

AI in the Cards for DOD of the Future

June 14, 2018 by Leave a comment

Stephanie Meloni

By Stephanie Meloni, consultant

Across the Department of Defense artificial intelligence and machine learning are gaining real traction. And plans are in the works to establish a center dedicated to delivering AI solutions across the DOD, as well as a proposal for an AI and machine learning council as part of the FY19 National Defense Authorization Act.  DOD agencies are very interested in using AI to combat and overmatch potential adversaries — and there’s no shortage of use cases across the DOD. Going forward, technology companies will want to be aware of differences between customer environments before engaging with a potential customer.

Recently, early adapters gathered at an AFCEA DC luncheon to discuss recent developments and challenges in AI and machine learning. Here are some highlights.

DISA, an example of a non-tactical customer, is looking at how to use machine learning for cyber situational awareness. DISA uses commercial machine learning technologies and contractors for Acropolis and their Big Data Platform to combat cyber threats and attacks. AI can help them shift their cyber strategy from reactive to proactive.

Read more of this post

Filed under Market Intelligence, Sales Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and beyond

April 20, 2018 by Leave a comment

artificial intelligence, government, securityBy Kevin Shaker, senior analyst

Artificial intelligence has been making headway in the IT sector with a focus on cybersecurity. Spending on AI and machine learning, which helps make AI possible, will grow from $12 billion in 2017 to $57.6 billion by 2021, according to IDC.

And it’s starting to get the attention of federal, state and local government IT personnel who see it as a way to increase and optimize automation for enhanced judgment and cost reduction.

The largest opportunity for AI is cybersecurity. Government agencies spend significant resources and people hours adapting to cyber threats while hacker technology becomes even more persistent and evolving. This is the wild west with cybersecurity and the trick is to stay one step ahead of malware, spyware and viruses that aim to corrupt and compromise sensitive processes and data.

Read more of this post

Filed under Market Intelligence Tagged with , , , , ,

What you should know about the future of machines

January 12, 2018 by Leave a comment

machine learning, artificial intelligenceBy Mark Wisinger, senior analyst

2017 saw machine learning become the de-facto in-vogue technology, whether the conversation was about data, cybersecurity or even traditional business systems.

In December, Google’s AlphaZero chess engine, utilizing Google’s DeepMind AI, crushed the incumbent chess engine champion, Stockfish. Google’s DeepMind relies heavily on machine learning – the AlphaZero chess engine did not start with any human knowledge, yet was able to learn how to beat Stockfish in 400 hours through machine learning. It’s a clear victory for machine learning – but one that’s easy to simulate. This is a much easier use case than identifying noise from cyber threats or prioritizing and cleaning multiple forms of data.

At immixGroup’s Government IT Sales Summit, we hosted a discussion on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning with Ron Gula, president and co-founder of Gula Tech Adventures and former CEO and co-founder of Tenable Networks, Dr. William Vanderlinde, chief scientist at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and Rich Friedrich, senior director of cyber security analytics at Micro Focus Government Solutions.

Here are key takeaways to keep in mind when you discuss machine learning and AI with your government customers:

Read more of this post

Filed under Government IT Sales Summit, Market Intelligence Tagged with , , , ,

Here’s what you’ll get out of this year’s Summit sessions

November 14, 2017 by Leave a comment

government, sales, ITBy Rita Walston, senior director of marketing

This year’s Government IT Sales Summit will be a full day of rich, actionable content on Nov. 16. We’ll cover everything from how the public sector is spending IT dollars in FY18 to the latest trends in cloud, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. What makes this content come alive is our speakers, who hail from private industry and government.

We recently spoke to a few of them about their sessions. Here’s a teaser of what you’ll hear:

Read more of this post

Filed under Government IT Sales Summit Tagged with , , , , , ,

Will AI be able to stop cybercrime?

October 17, 2017 by Leave a comment

cybersecurity, artificial intelligenceLloyd McCoy Jr.Real talk is finally starting on how to actually implement proactive cyber defense. We have to stop taking it on the chin from bad actors who find cyber intrusion and electronic warfare relatively simple and free from consequence.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is being touted as the next go-to technology for understanding potential threats in nearly every theater of war—from cybercrime to electronic warfare.

At a recent forum for government IT professionals, Ardisson Lyons of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) said using standardized cloud-based platforms can improve big data analysis and consumption. An “Intelligent Simulation Center” can help immerse decision-makers in the information in a dynamic way.

Read more of this post

Filed under Government IT Sales Summit Tagged with , , , ,

%d bloggers like this: