McLean, Va., December 30, 2025 – In a move that significantly strengthens its foothold in the national security AI landscape, BigBear.ai (NYSE: BBAI) announced the successful completion of its acquisition of Ask Sage.

The deal, valued at $250 million in cash, brings Ask Sage’s fast-growing Generative AI platform, purpose-built for secure AI deployment and agentic capabilities, directly into BigBear.ai’s arsenal.

This is a financial transaction and a strategic maneuver to accelerate the deployment of trusted, production-ready AI in some of the most sensitive environments globally.

Ask Sage has carved out an impressive niche, currently supporting over 100,000 users across 16,000 government teams and hundreds of commercial organizations. Its generative AI capabilities are already operational within the most demanding security and compliance frameworks, a crucial differentiator in sectors like defense and intelligence.

Kevin McAleenan, CEO of BigBear.ai, emphasized this point, stating, “Ask Sage is already operating at scale in mission-critical environments, and together we are bringing to market a secure, integrated AI platform that unifies data, software, and mission services in one place.”

With this integration, BigBear.ai significantly expands its AI portfolio to include secure generative AI workflows. These new capabilities complement its existing mission solutions and services, allowing government and enterprise customers to incorporate AI while maintaining ironclad control over data sovereignty, model governance, and stringent security requirements.

This addresses a core concern for highly regulated environments: how to harness the power of generative AI without compromising critical data or security protocols.

“By bringing Ask Sage into the BigBear.ai family, we are responding directly to what our customers have been asking for – AI that is not only powerful, but trusted, scalable, and ready for real-world missions,” McAleenan added.

This direct response to customer demand highlights the practical, mission-oriented focus of BigBear.ai. The company expects the acquisition to further enhance its growth across national security, defense, intelligence, and regulated commercial markets, reinforcing its commitment to moving AI solutions “from experimentation to operational impact.”

BigBear.ai is headquartered in McLean, Virginia, is a leading provider of mission-ready AI solutions and services, relied upon by customers and partners in highly complex, distributed operating environments. Their predictive analytics capabilities are already a cornerstone for critical infrastructure and national security.

Ask Sage, meanwhile, specializes in technology-agnostic generative AI solutions for the public sector, defense industrial base, and commercial enterprises, supporting a wide range of both commercial and open-source Large Language Models (LLMs).

The combined entity aims to leverage these strengths to create a truly unified and secure AI platform. The question remains: how quickly will this integration translate into even more advanced, deployed AI solutions for the nation’s most critical missions?