Line
AI Share of SBIR and STTR Awards by Agency
AI-related awards as a share of each agency’s SBIR and STTR awards, %, federal fiscal years
4 of 5 series are above their level a year earlier·4 of 5 are at a five-year high
Plays the chart through its history. Pauses are where the data set a record or moved most.
Palanor classification of SBIR.gov award data: an award is AI-related when its title or abstract uses a published AI phrase (artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, language model and others; the full list is in each signal’s methodology). The newest fiscal year has few awards (lapse in program authority, upload lag). An agency-year needs at least 50 awards to print.
Which agencies are placing their small-business research bets on AI. Each line is the AI-related share of one agency’s SBIR and STTR awards.
What this chart reads
- AI Share of SBIR/STTR Awards · Department of Defenseas “Defense”latest 2025-09-30
- AI Share of SBIR/STTR Awards · Health and Human Services (NIH and others)as “Health and Human Services”latest 2025-09-30
- AI Share of SBIR/STTR Awards · Department of Energyas “Energy”latest 2025-09-30
- AI Share of SBIR/STTR Awards · NASAas “NASA”latest 2025-09-30
- AI Share of SBIR/STTR Awards · National Science Foundationas “National Science Foundation”latest 2025-09-30
Sources
AI Share of SBIR/STTR Awards · Department of Defense. Source: SBIR.gov award data file (with abstracts), published by the U.S. Small Business Administration and refreshed monthly: https://data.www.sbir.gov/mod_awarddatapublic/award_data.csv. SBA: "Government information on SBA.gov is in the public domain." Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, SBIR.gov. The AI classification is Palanor's: keyword rules on each award's title and abstract (the abstracts are read, never stored).
AI Share of SBIR/STTR Awards · Health and Human Services (NIH and others). Source: SBIR.gov award data file (with abstracts), published by the U.S. Small Business Administration and refreshed monthly: https://data.www.sbir.gov/mod_awarddatapublic/award_data.csv. SBA: "Government information on SBA.gov is in the public domain." Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, SBIR.gov. The AI classification is Palanor's: keyword rules on each award's title and abstract (the abstracts are read, never stored).
AI Share of SBIR/STTR Awards · Department of Energy. Source: SBIR.gov award data file (with abstracts), published by the U.S. Small Business Administration and refreshed monthly: https://data.www.sbir.gov/mod_awarddatapublic/award_data.csv. SBA: "Government information on SBA.gov is in the public domain." Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, SBIR.gov. The AI classification is Palanor's: keyword rules on each award's title and abstract (the abstracts are read, never stored).
AI Share of SBIR/STTR Awards · NASA. Source: SBIR.gov award data file (with abstracts), published by the U.S. Small Business Administration and refreshed monthly: https://data.www.sbir.gov/mod_awarddatapublic/award_data.csv. SBA: "Government information on SBA.gov is in the public domain." Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, SBIR.gov. The AI classification is Palanor's: keyword rules on each award's title and abstract (the abstracts are read, never stored).
AI Share of SBIR/STTR Awards · National Science Foundation. Source: SBIR.gov award data file (with abstracts), published by the U.S. Small Business Administration and refreshed monthly: https://data.www.sbir.gov/mod_awarddatapublic/award_data.csv. SBA: "Government information on SBA.gov is in the public domain." Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, SBIR.gov. The AI classification is Palanor's: keyword rules on each award's title and abstract (the abstracts are read, never stored).
Charts are drawn from Palanor's signal library and recomputed from source data on every view. Transformations (changes, indexing, year-on-year rates) are Palanor's.