Lilt Inc.

Lilt Inc., a small business provider of AI-powered machine translation, natural language processing, and linguistic technology, operates exclusively as a prime contractor across federal agencies without subcontractor engagement. The San Francisco-based for-profit corporation competes on an unrestricted, full-and-open basis — no set-aside designations recur in its award footprint, though several individual SBIR Phase II and Phase III contracts carry total small business designations.

Lilt's capability portfolio centers on enterprise translation software, contextual AI transcription systems, and speech-recognition-integrated language technology for defense and civilian agencies. Representative work includes a $1.25 million SBIR Phase II contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory (May 2022) for AI/machine learning foreign language translation integration with automatic speech recognition; a $5.36 million definitive contract from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (April 2023) for a machine translation solution for text products, extended through April 2028; a $1.46 million SBIR Phase III contract from the Air Force (July 2023) for the Linguist Next AI translation tool at Presidio of Monterey; and an $8.33 million Other Transaction Agreement from the Department of the Army (November 2024) for AI linguist transcription software prototyping, with performance through November 2026. Most recently, Lilt was awarded a $2.93 million purchase order from a Civilian agency headquarters division (September 2026) for Lilt services, with completion not until September 2031.

Customer concentration is fragmented across defense and civilian technical agencies. The top five agencies by award count represent 76% of recent awards, split across the Air Force Materiel Command Research Laboratory (4 awards, $5.1 million combined potential value), the Department of Justice FBI Headquarters Division (3 awards, $5.1 million), NOAA (2 awards, $5.6 million), the Office of Naval Research (2 awards, $3 million), and the Air Force proper (2 awards, $2 million). By potential value dollars, the top five account for 88% of the portfolio, with the Department of the Army anchoring the list at $8.3 million on a single OTA, followed by NOAA, the FBI, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and ONR. Lilt holds a $150 thousand single-award Blanket Purchase Agreement with the Department of the Air Force Defense Finance and Accounting Service for translation services (through June 2027) and a $475 thousand GSA Federal Supply Schedule contract providing software licensing access across the government.

Activity has been sporadic: three awards in 2021, four in 2022, six in 2023, one in 2024, and one in 2026, with combined potential value of $30.8 million across 17 awards. Three awards carrying combined potential value of $15.2 million reach completion within the next twenty-four months, exposing recompete opportunity in FY 2027–2028. Lilt operates across NAICS codes dominated by R&D in physical and engineering sciences (6 awards), with secondary exposure in software publishing and custom computer programming. The vendor's federal work is entirely prime-contract based with no subcontractor footprint in the source data.

Lilt provides translation software and services. Our patented AI technology augments the power of the human translator, increasing translation speed by 3-5 times without any reduction in quality. It has been shown to reduce translation errors by 70 percent, allowing linguists to process more content, faster and with increased accuracy. Lilt's adaptive neural machine translation engine constantly learns new terminology and, on average, helps a linguist process nearly 700 words per hour and up to 1,500 words per hour. It can rapidly ingest and automatically pre-translate thousands of pages of text in bulk, saving precious time. When minutes and hours matter Lilt is the trusted resource to quickly and accurately translate massive quantities of mission-critical content.

Lilt translates 40+ languages and can be deployed anywhere there is electricity. Our translation speed, quality, and cost are unmatched and relied upon in some of the most sensitive and critical government programs.