July 2025 | Navigating What’s Next in Federal Acquisitions & the Rise of ‘Small AI’
The federal acquisition and technology environment is evolving rapidly, and the July edition of our newsletter examines the momentum behind that change plus the advantage of playing small to win big.
Across the government, we’re seeing increased urgency to deploy emerging technologies that deliver measurable impact, and fast. The shift toward Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) solutions is accelerating, with a strong emphasis on usability, scalability, and speed to mission. At the same time, the government is actively seeking input from small businesses to help shape a more agile, data-driven acquisition environment—one that enables faster adoption of best-in-class innovation.
In this issue, we spotlight efforts to modernize and streamline federal acquisitions and explore how “small AI” can offer powerful, efficient alternatives to bulkier models—and why that matters for mission execution. We also delve into contracting reform efforts and the technology imperatives driving today’s federal buyers. And finally, we’re proud to announce ORI’s membership in three additional government consortia, expanding the collaborative pathways that connect emerging, AI‑driven technology with the nation’s most pressing challenges.
~Kathy Benson, CEO & Co-Founder
How are you navigating the shifting federal contracting landscape? Here’s a snapshot of what we’re tracking:
Small biz insights on nimble contracting: Underscoring an open door for industry recommendations, the DoD is boosting the role of small businesses by seeking comments on modernizing defense acquisitions, tapping into emerging technology for defense, and enabling startups to develop advanced AI tools alongside primes.
Uptick in AI investment: Federal agencies are allocating more funds to AI solutions as a component of broader programs and initiatives, with unique acquisition strategies and accelerated authorizations expected to drive an increase in federal AI investment. Deltek’s Federal AI Market, 2024-2028 report forecasts federal spending on AI and AI-related technologies will increase from $2.1B in FY 2024 to $3.1B in FY 2028—an increase of 8.3% each year over the course of five years.
Federal Acquisition Regulation overhaul: The April 2025 Executive Order directed a “Revolutionary FAR Overhaul,” now in initial rollout through class deviations and new buying guides. FAR 2.0 aims to streamline regulatory hurdles and return to its statutory roots, rewritten in plain language and with ongoing updates and specific changes such as those impacting the Buy American Act (BAA) requirements for DoD contracts.
GSA one‑source push: The GSA's OneGov Strategy aims to transform federal IT procurement through direct engagement with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and streamlined purchasing. Amidst recent headlines surrounding big tech companies contracting directly with GSA, concerns exist around implementing such a large-scale strategy, the impact on resellers, the potential for unintended consequences, and the GSA's capacity to fully support the initiative.
Think small to win big at AI: Is “small AI” the next big thing? First, Voxel51 Co-Founder Jason Corso caught our attention when he joined fellow AI powerhouse Charna Parkey on the Open Source Data Podcast to debate why 2025 is about small, domain-specific AI models. Then conversations sprang up around a NVIDIA paper that argues small language models (SLMs) are the future of agentic AI and may be better suited and more economical than large language models (LLMs). It’s a position long touted by Seekr, which helps enterprises and government agencies build and deploy efficient “smaller AI” applications and domain-specific models using their own data instead of relying solely on massive, generic datasets, allowing for flexible and edge deployment.
ORI Joins NSTIC, IWRP & SpEC Consortia
ORI is proud to announce membership in a trio of defense consortia centered on streamlining defense contracting, fostering collaboration, and targeting development and maturation of innovative technologies.
Naval Surface Technology & Innovation Consortium (NSTIC): Addresses security threats in the surface and maritime environment through innovative technological solutions.
Information Warfare Research Project Consortium (IWRP): Identifies, develops, and demonstrates enabling technologies that enhance Navy and Marine Corps mission effectiveness in the field of Information Warfare.
Space Enterprise Consortium (SpEC): Created through the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, bridges the cultural gap between military buyers, commercial space startups, and small businesses.
Highlights from the CDCA’s 71st SBIOI Symposium
ORI’s Mark Whitman attended the Charleston Defense Contractors Association’s (CDCA) 71st Strategic Business Industry Outreach Initiative (SBIOI) Symposium, a collaboration between industry and government to give the Defense Industrial Base in Charleston access to cutting-edge national defense solutions. Just a few of Mark’s takeaways:
Impacts of the DoD Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) I & II include significant loss of leadership and civilian employees, with the contracting office losing nearly 20% of its staff. Many announcements involved leadership changes and new active leads of key Naval Information Warfare Center programs that are maintaining activity levels but running thin.
Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard are increasing their Joint Base Charleston presence, expanding mission and training requirements and building out 2K+ staff across both FLETC and USCG facilities.
One of the more animated speakers, Captain Thomas Rodzewicz, Commanding Officer, Coast Guard Cutter James, spoke about the USCG supporting SOUTHCOM with both Title 14 and Title 10 missions, which were highlighted in this video heralding the seizure of more than $1 billion in illegal drugs in spring 2025.
SeekrFlow™ Agents: Intelligent AI with Accuracy & Control
A prime example of specialized AI that delivers a big impact is Agentic AI—and Seekr recently launched its own SeekrFlow™ Agents, a full-stack solution for building and deploying intelligent agents that operate autonomously, securely, and at scale. A one-stop solution that combines data preparation, model hosting, domain-specific fine-tuning, vector databases, orchestration, and explainability, SeekrFlow Agents:
Retain memory across sessions
Adapt based on user history and preferences
Follow structured plans to execute tasks with accuracy
Run flexibly and securely across the cloud and on-premises
Ensure full auditability and compliance through built-in explainability tools
Provide guaranteed compute capacity and predictable, scalable performance
Check out these 10 enterprise use cases demonstrating the opportunity and ROI that AI agents can deliver across specific tasks and industry sectors.
Voxel51 Virtual Meetup: Understanding Visual Agents
August 7 | Zoom
Experts discuss building foundational models that can act as generalist agents for computers, evaluating AI agents in dynamic web settings, and what it takes to build an agent that can navigate GUIs like humans. Save your seat.
Qlik’s Data & Analytics Learning Voyage
On Demand
Set sail for a smooth data journey with on-demand access to the most popular presentations from Qlik Connect, and chart a course for doing data differently. New sessions launch every week.
2025 Air, Space & Cyber Conference
September 22-24 | National Harbor, MD
Join ORI at the Air & Space Forces Association (AFA) for more than 40 sessions of first-class professional military development, sharing of emerging requirements and technologies, and connections that advance the cause of air and space power. Will we see you there?
AI’s Next Frontier: Computer Vision In Action
Despite being a massive piece of the bigger AI puzzle, computer vision doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. And while LLMs are powerful, they lack one thing: visual perception.
Computer vision is finally stepping onto the main stage. Voxel51 Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer Jason Corso joined the UX Magazine Invisible Machines Podcast to explore the complexity and power of machines that can see, touch, and experience the world—not just read about it. Hear what that means for the future of embodied AI, multimodal systems, and machine understanding, plus get a behind-the-scenes look at how FiftyOne powers visual AI at scale.
