BigBear.ai CEO Kevin McAleenan Delivers Biggest Takeaways from Its Q3 Earnings

Our next story includes NYSE listed company Big Bear AI. It recently announced its third quarter 2026 results. The specialized security and defense tech company is focused on its next phase of expansion. And joining me now with more is CEO and board member of Big Bear AI, Kevin McAleenan. Uh Kevin, thank you so much for joining.

Good morning. Good to be with you.

Great to have you here. Tell us the takeaways that investors should know from your earnings report.

Yeah, we were happy to announce our earnings uh yesterday. Uh really had a lot of good news embedded there. We we got 31% growth uh over last year's third quarter, our third consecutive quarter of organic growth. Uh and really see a lot of signs that our strategy is working and we're starting to to accelerate into our growth opportunities.

This phrase for your revenue results. For those who don't know, what does that mean for your company?

Well, we'd said a year ago that we were going to go on offense, that we were going to make strategic acquisitions and then we're going to focus on top line growth to really take advantage of this moment in taking the emerging AI tools and applying them with our customers in secure environments. That's in the federal government, for Department of War and intelligence community as well as homeland security agencies, uh as well as for critical industries that have a security component. Think about uh airports and airlines, shipyards, manufacturing industry.

So, we we've done that. Uh we've made two very strategic acquisitions in the last year, uh and we for for three straight quarters uh have grown and we've also raised our guidance for the first time uh in Big Bear's history. So we're we're really taking advantage of the opportunity in the market uh and set ourselves on a path for continued growth.

As AI demand continues to accelerate, what are you most confident about when it comes to the road ahead?

What I'm most confident about is that we're really well positioned. that that we have the right tools uh for our customer needs that we understand their need because you know, our mantra is that we're we're operators uh and we know what the operators need. So we're taking AI and applying it uh where they work. Think about a CDP officer making a decision on which goods or which traveler might present a risk that they need to focus on, an intelligence analyst preparing a brief on global uh laydown of forces for for their senior leadership.

uh or or even an operator who's trying to coordinate a drone swarm or defend against one. Uh that we understand their missions. We're we're 20 plus percent uh veterans, our executives are former uh operators in security uh industries and agencies. Uh and so we we understand their mission set and can take these tools and apply them in that secure environment.

Big Bear AI specializes in security and defense technology. Are there any products that the team is looking forward to working on?

Sure. I you know, I think what most uh importantly right now is our generative AI platform. Uh this takes the the latest models in a model agnostic approach. So you can use uh whatever latest frontier lab, you can use open uh weight models and apply them in on secure networks uh for the government with with regulatory approval. Uh and and that means that agencies like we we announced new customers this quarter like the FBI, NASA, Department of Energy,

uh customers that have really significant needs for uh high-end AI capabilities but want to use them in a in uh a secure platform where they their data is not going to be uh exposed and where they can repeatedly use against their top model and against any model that's the best for the the task. Uh whether you're planning an Artemis mission, uh whether you're working on uh an intelligence brief, uh we want to be able to provide them the right capability to that space.

How is Big Bear AI using AI to expand its customers?

Yeah, absolutely. That was a big commitment uh when we acquired SI, which is that generative AI platform is we were going to use it ourselves internally uh and really have all of our our functions, certainly our our PD and sales team, uh but even our executives, our financial professionals, our our attorneys, uh everybody using AI first to take full advantage of the tools uh and ensure that we are applying them to make ourselves as efficient and effective as possible. And we'll see that curve extend. We're we're like any other uh business that that is starting to benefit from these tools and be able to use them day-to-day.

What is next for Big Bear AI?

Well, we're looking uh at really well positioned for 27. Uh you know, we see that the global trends really favor what we're doing, whether it's defense monetization, whether it's changes in the global supply chain and the need to move goods quickly and securely, a growth in global travel and really operators who are on a lot of pressure. You talked about cyber risk with the last guest. Uh we're we're seeing all kinds of threats uh from asymmetric capabilities of adversaries that need to be addressed. and we want to give them the tools uh to do that.

So, so we see a market that has tail wins for us. Uh we've got the right contract footing, the right credibility. Uh and so we want to take this forward and continue to grow, continue to look for M&A targets that can bring additional capability to our customers uh and really enhance what we're providing.

All right. Kevin McAleenan, CEO and Board member of Big Bear AI. Kevin, thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you.