Keep faith in public safety.
Don’t buy the hype about the so-called AI bubble — at least not in government technology.
Those are among the main messages taken from recent earnings announcements from two of the handful of gov tech suppliers that are publicly traded: Tyler Technologies and Via Transportation, which had its $493 million initial public offering in September.
Together, those reports and associated comments from executives help illustrate the current state of gov tech and what public agencies and investors can expect from the business as the new year approaches.
The main numbers support the idea that the business of gov tech remains robust.
Tyler reported third-quarter revenue of $595.9 million, up 9.7 percent year over year.
Via, in its first quarterly earnings filing after its IPO, reported a 32 percent year-over-year revenue increase, to $110 million — with much of that growth coming from the U.S. government sector, according to CEO Daniel Ramot.
As one can imagine, Via executives offered supreme enthusiasm as they discussed earnings with analysts for the first time officially since going public. What stood out was the apparent room for growth that the company, which operates in North America and Europe, sees for itself in the coming months and years.
Via booked an 11 percent year-over-year increase in customers in the third quarter of 2025, with the company’s platform now serving 713 clients. (Tyler, by contrast, says it has more than 15,000 clients, though Tyler operates in many more areas of government than does Via.)
Ramot, though, told analysts that the market served by Via in North America and Europe stands at $82 billion.
“Today, we capture less than 1 percent of this market,” he said, adding that Via has about 63,000 “potential” customers around the world. He left little doubt that the newly public company would be aggressive in building its client list. “We are fundamentally transforming the way governments and cities operate through automation, advanced algorithms, data and AI.”
Ramot was optimistic that company growth will come from such areas as student transit and “micro transit.” For the latter, he offered the example of Via customer Springfield, Ohio, which he said lacks the density to support a traditional bus system.
A “redesign” of that system toward on-demand transit — work that included Via’s transportation planning software — has resulted in transit access to 40 percent more of the city without an increase in the budget. Average time spent waiting for transportation in the city has also been reduced by a factor of four, he said.
“This is a remarkable transformation for Springfield and its residents,” Ramot said. “Even more importantly, we know it is applicable to so many more cities in America.”
Other gov tech nuggets and trend signals from the two earnings reports include:
- The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and ongoing federal budget cuts have yet to harm the business and deployment of government technology. Ramot, for instance, said the recent federal shutdown had no impact on Via services and that, in any case, 16 out of 19 recent transit-related measures put to the public via ballot measures ended up passing, which resulted in $11.8 billion of funding. Tyler CEO Lynn Moore, meanwhile, assured analysts that “we have not seen any fundamental change in public-sector demand, nor have we seen any material impact on demand from DOGE or related initiatives or, more recently, the federal government shutdown.”
- Public safety and related areas continue to drive so much in government technology — as seen via several recent deals. Moore said that Tyler, which recently bought Emergency Networking, also inked several deals in this space, including one with the Colorado Department of Corrections.
- Both Ramot and Moore touted the AI capabilities of their companies, as is all but required these days. But Moore touched upon building concern that artificial intelligence has entered a bubble phase — comparisons are often made to the dot-com bubble and crash of a generation ago — but he offered confidence. He talked about how Tyler has weathered other instances of “technological transformation” and would do the same with AI. “Each time, we learned the same fundamental lesson: Technology alone never wins in the public sector,” Moore told analysts. “Durable outcomes come from deep domain expertise, trusted client partnerships and disciplined execution. That’s been our edge, and it still is today.”
- Related to concerns about the AI bubble are criticisms that artificial intelligence, for all the billions being invested, it not yet pulling its weight financially. A recent report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in fact, found that 95 percent of companies have yet to make money from seemingly ubiquitous AI tools. Moore offered another narrative — one that could encourage even more faith in public-sector AI. He said AI-backed tools such as document automation and priority-based budgeting have resulted in productivity gains of up to 30 percent for clients and returns of up to three times the investment. “We’re currently scaling our investments in AI tooling for all 2,000 of our product development team members, rolling out the tooling, training and enablement required to innovate and deliver at the speed of AI,” he said.
- Student transit stands as a good gov tech bet, at least according to Ramot. Via’s newest vertical produced 200 percent growth in customer subscriptions to the company’s service. “Our efforts in the schools vertical are still nascent, but we’re very encouraged by the initial results and believe this can be an engine for growth in the future, as well as a template for expansion into other new verticals,” he said.
