Commercial technology is front-and-center of everyone’s mind across the public sector ecosystem these days, but history shows that agencies have moved slow on the acquisition and adoption fronts here.

Sheila Duffy, founder and chief executive of Greystones Group, views these efforts as grounded in collaboration as customer and contractor both have to agree on the roadmap for development and implementation.

Duffy joins our Ross Wilkers for this episode to go over keys for good collaborations with agencies on rolling out modern tools and how Small Business Innovation Research programs can be a pathway to accomplish that.

Any conversation about commercial tech in government has to include security. This one is no exception.

Post-shutdown recovery is one item carrying over from calendar year 2025 into 2026 and the chance of another funding stoppage happening on Jan. 30 is not zero percent.

That here-and-now is the starting point of this episode where Stephanie Smith, GovCon industry senior analyst and valuation services director at RSM, takes us through some of the major themes and talking points that will shape the ecosystem in 2026.

How do we define the “non-traditional contractor” and what do their prospects look like? As Steph tells our Ross Wilkers, technical definitions and terms for talking about these companies are moving targets.

Steph and Ross also went over artificial intelligence’s impacts to contractors’ business models, key macroeconomics and industrial policy developments for GovCon to monitor, and qualitative drivers of true value in a business.

The spring of 2024 was a turning point for Nightwing, when the business separated out of its then-parent RTX to become a standalone company focused on cybersecurity and intelligence solutions.

Chris Jones joined Nightwing later that fall as chief technology officer following service as the CIA’s associate deputy director for science and technology. Jones joins for this episode to put into perspective how Nightwing has sought to carve out its own path in the market and priority areas for the company going forward.

In talking with our Ross Wilkers, Jones also explains the role of companies like Nightwing in helping their government agencies customers navigate changes in how they operate even if the overall missions remain the same.

Artificial intelligence and other automation technologies in the cyber landscape is also on the discussion agenda. All tech conversations end back up at AI these days, after all.

Nightwing acquires managed security services provider

Nightwing appoints Coleman as chief executive

What the mystery buyer of RTX's cyber business is getting