Selling to the US military is complicated. For defense companies and investors, sorting out what the massive Department of Defense behemoth is doing and where its billions of dollars are going can feel like navigating a maze.
The US military’s vast portfolio of weapons, capabilities, and technologies — both the ones it already has and the ones it wants — is widespread and not easily sourced. Details about those budgets, too, can be confusing and taxing to sort through.
This is “a very manual and confusing process to go through because there’s no single source of truth about what the data is for the Defense Department contracting and acquisition process,” Michael Brown, the former director of the Defense Innovation Unit, explained. The information can be found scattered across an overwhelming number of documents, websites, organizations, and budgets.
A Pentagon data dashboard
There are start-ups trying to leverage artificial intelligence and data science to help companies through the maze. One of them is a company called Obviant. Business Insider recently chatted with its leadership.
The company is built around a program of the same name that is designed to help make sense of chaotic Department of Defense data. It intends to be a one-stop information shop for defense firms or investors, Brendan Karp, one of the company’s founders, said.
He said the program can also be useful for government officials, even those involved in these projects, to see the Pentagon’s sprawling collection of programs and budgets more clearly.
Through extensive data engineering, the team compiled information from thousands of sources and compiled it into one database, providing a cohesive, user-friendly picture of the sweeping defense acquisition landscape, Karp said. The platform shows program performance, breaks down funding and contract data, and highlights which companies are working on what.
Obviant’s users can search for more general capabilities — electronic warfare, for example, or uncrewed underwater vehicles — to see which branches are working on those systems and what solicitations are out there. And all the data is sourced, be it a document or a congressional hearing. For the latter, it will show users exactly where a program or project was discussed.
“Instead of having to figure out how this information is pieced together in isolation,” Karp said, “I can have a quicker picture.”
Obviant uses some artificial intelligence and machine learning processes, but it’s largely built on about a year’s worth of heads-down data scripting. Karp said the team figured out what trusted sources mattered, how to collect data from them, and how to piece them together for better understanding.
AI could be used to maintain the program and further refine its information and models, as well as advance functions like an AI-powered search engine.
The user can ask a question — say, “where is the funding for counter-drone systems going?” or “what are the latest updates on Golden Dome?” — and get detailed answers, project sources, news coverage, comments from officials, and more.
Who are programs like this for?
The most obvious audience for software solutions like Obviant would be companies looking into pursuing DoD contracts. They can find potential collaborators, see what companies are already working on, and determine what their business plans should be.
Brown, who’s now a partner at Shield Capital, one of Obviant’s investors, said the platform is a “game-changer for anyone that’s in that ecosystem.”
Forecasting and informed insight into the inner workings of the Defense Department and surrounding industries are useful for firms and investors, but also operations overseeing programs.
“I think it’s also a very useful tool for the government to see how well the budget lines up with strategy,” Brown said of Obviant. There’s also potential value for researchers and think tanks.
Obviant is designed to be “a single source of truth,” Karp said, explaining that government workers definitely benefit from having a clearer understanding of what’s actually in their portfolios — and what other offices across the Pentagon could be working on something similar.
Efforts to improve insight into Pentagon processes come amid debates around the need to overhaul DoD’s rigid acquisition process to meet the speed of technological innovation — especially in software, AI, and drones, rapidly emerging technology.
Those conversations have been heavily focused on what weapons the DoD believes will be important for deterring or fighting future conflicts and the need expressed by officials to get those capabilities in the hands of the warfighter quickly.
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