AIT Provides Hosting Services and Reimagines Government-to-Business Opportunities with New AI Matchmaking Solution

TL; DR: AIT offers a one-stop shop for hosting and web solutions and plans to release its latest solution, MatchAwards, in January 2024. The firm’s primary focus is providing small businesses with solutions to create a successful online presence. Its hosting platform includes various features, including email marketing, domain registration, web design, and social media marketing. AIT’s MatchAwards will help businesses, government entities, and investors converge on one platform to collaborate and create better economic opportunities. This platform uses an AI-powered engine to provide users with relevant matches based on their NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) and PSC (Product Service Codes), along with keywords mapped to their location.

Innovation is the fuel of longevity. At least, that can be said for the hosting infrastructure firm, AIT. Clarence Briggs and his ex-military friends created AIT in a garage in 1995, right around the time of the dot-com bubble. While other startups rode the wave of outside investment, AIT remained private and homegrown — a decision that helped build their legacy.

AIT has always stayed at the forefront of technology, creating innovative solutions to meet the user needs of today and tomorrow. Forging this vision and culture has allowed AIT to grow and evolve over the last 28 years in the face of an ever-changing tech landscape. The AIT team has seen many companies come and go, but innovation kept it in the race.

“What differentiates us is the constant innovation and ability to recognize what worked yesterday is not working today as well. And it won’t work tomorrow,” said Clarence Briggs, CEO of AIT.

Since its inception, AIT has responded to evolving demands in several ways. It was one of the first companies to create a control panel, leverage virtualization, host SharePoint, and develop a PPC ad module. The AIT team has always answered the call and now provides a comprehensive hosting and web platform for users to create their online presence.

In true AIT innovative fashion, the team has also taken on AI. Clarence and the team set out to create an AI matchmaking solution for government contracts and grants so every small business could find resources to help them innovate just like AIT has done over the years.

“The engine of innovation is small business. Large companies have known that forever. If we can allow small businesses to innovate with these contracts and grant opportunities, we can contribute to advancing innovation,” said Clarence.

AIT’s infrastructure base allowed it to weather the dot-com bubble burst and innovate with new solutions over the years. The team managed to deliver through every stage of the information era, from the emergence of shared servers to the integration of eCommerce.

Today, AIT is a one-stop shop for small business owners to create their online presence. Its platform covers everything, from website building to social media marketing. The team implemented all these services to help business owners consolidate and efficiently manage their online platforms.

“Business owners want different tools, so we’ve expanded to offer those and now have in-house developers. So beyond that, we also have a development team for custom solutions for clients,” said Mike Noble, COO of AIT.

AIT allows users to build their complete business profile in one place with its solutions. When AIT first began, it offered hosting and domain services. Since then, it has expanded and merged its solution with in-demand and essential marketing tools. Some of these services include web design and development, social media marketing, content writing, SEO, email marketing, and lead generation assistance.

“We can manage their social media with different tools we have, where we can assist them in getting blogs posted on different social media platforms, and help them with their entire online business profile,” said Mike.

Business owners have to juggle multiple moving pieces while managing their businesses. AIT can help ease the load by being an extension to these small teams and handling core operational elements for them, whether that’s setting up their Google My Business profile or creating custom solutions.

AIT has operated through some of the most significant shifts in our digital era, including cloud adoption and the rise of eCommerce. Through it all, AIT has pivoted to meet the current needs of customers. In the ‘90s, it created a control panel when users needed something more than the command line. It also provided social media marketing for businesses when it emerged as a major player in the last decade.

AI is the latest development it has leveraged to create an in-demand solution for users. Its new platform, MatchAwards.com, uses its AI-powered GovTide engine to help small businesses find government-to-business opportunities and boost economic growth and development.

“You can build your business profile based on NAICS codes, PSC codes, and keywords. And this is all AI-driven. Then, you’ll receive all the G2B opportunities in government contracts and grants relevant to you. You will also receive all the B2B opportunities that filter down from that,” said Clarence.

AIT currently has a client using the web 2.0 version of MatchAwards, but its web 3.0 platform will release in January 2024. Clarence said the MatchAwards is a 20-year development, and the key has been the AI engine. The AI engine allows AIT to streamline the process and users to find and filter for relevant matches without doing too much legwork or research.

“We modeled it off a social media-type interface. So there’s a comfort-level familiarity with posting, liking, and sharing. So now, people can do business with local businesses, probably get a better rate, and be able to establish long-term relationships from this platform,” said Mike.

The AIT team created MatchAwards not only to help small businesses but also to stimulate economic growth. Government entities, small businesses, and investors can come together on MatchAwards to connect and collaborate on opportunities to boost local economies. MatchAwards also provides tutorial videos if you’re interested in creating your own account and exploring the platform.

“This is a clear-cut tool that is not only an economic development tool for economic development organizations, such as chambers or anybody with subscribers. But it’s also a tool to shape public policy,” said Clarence.

MatchAwards creates a massive ecosystem for businesses, government organizations, and investors to foster collaboration and increase economic opportunities. Its platform is primarily a significant win for small businesses. Not only is it free to use, but it also gives small businesses the transparency and visibility they often don’t receive.

“We made all these opportunities transparent. We took heat maps and looked at where the contracts and grants were going. So we superimposed those heat maps on the United States and began to see who are winners or losers,” said Clarence.

MatchAwards puts the data in owners’ hands so they can go out and successfully leverage their opportunities. Users receive complete empirical data on their matches and can assess to create a plan for the best outcomes.

This technology will also help counties in the long run. Smaller counties usually don’t get the same opportunities or resources as bigger ones. MatchAwards can help increase the GDPs of those counties by providing infrastructure and opportunities through its platform.

As AIT prepares for MatchAwards full launch, its mission remains unchanged.

“Our primary product line is to be the one-stop shop for businesses’ online presence. We’re continually trying to innovate and provide products and services that will be relevant to small businesses, which has been our main focus,” said Mike.