This A.I. Startup Hiring Neurodivergent Workers Beats Scale AI in Major Defense Contract

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Enabled Intelligence, an A.I. data labelling startup, might need to add a few new cubicles—the Falls Church, Va.-based company is quadrupling its workforce after securing a major contract to provide data labelling services to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the broader intelligence community. The five-year-old company credits its rise to an emphasis on accuracy, meticulous detail and its commitment to hiring staffers who identify as neurodivergent, said CEO Peter Kant.

Labeling data, such as text, images and video, is essential for training A.I. systems and demands a high degree of focus. Those skills are often especially strong among neurodivergent individuals, who account for 60 percent of Enabled’s more than 130 employees, said Kant. “Here’s an under-employed, highly qualified workforce with almost, like, superpowers in this area of hyper-focused detail orientation and pattern recognition that we can leverage for these critical missions,” he told Observer.

Those missions will soon include supporting Maven, the U.S. military’s A.I. program, under a seven-year contract with a ceiling of $708 million. The award represents the largest data labeling effort to date from the DoD’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Enabled won the contract in September, but the news became public only after the end of the government shutdown, as first reported by Bloomberg.

To secure the deal, Enabled outbid larger rivals, including Scale AI, another data labeling company that had previously worked on Maven. “While we are incredibly proud of the work our team has done on this program for four years, Scale’s public sector momentum is accelerating independent of a single award,” Scale AI said in a statement to Observer, citing recent government contracts with the Pentagon and U.S. Army.

What is Enabled Intelligence?

Kant was inspired to launch the startup after working at SRI International, where he saw A.I. development stall due to a lack of highly accurate labeled data. Enabled performs all of its data labeling in-house rather than outsourcing it abroad, with more than half its work tied to government programs alongside a range of commercial clients.

Hiring neurodivergent workers was central from day one. “We build the company from the ground up to support a variety of different work styles, communication styles, environments and the like,” said Kant, who noted that Enabled offers flexible hours, training tailored to different learning preferences and a full-time occupational coach specializing in working with employees on the autism spectrum.

The company has also created pipelines to identify strong candidates. Through a partnership with Melwood, a nonprofit that trains people with disabilities for IT roles, Enabled introduced a week-long boot camp and paid internship in A.I. data labeling.

The startup waited until it had confirmation of the NGA contract before bringing on new hires, some of whom came from Melwood’s programs. “The best part was reaching out to all the folks who’ve been waiting to see if they had a job and saying, ‘Hey, can you start on Tuesday?’” said Kant. “That was a lot of fun.”

Under the NGA contract, Enabled will label aircraft for defense and intelligence applications, as well as data tied to disaster response, environmental impact and storm impacts. The work spans “everything from key military equipment to changes in coastal lines and impacts of wildfires,” said Kant.

As it gears up for years of work ahead, Enabled doubled its workforce in the last week of October and then doubled it again by early November. The rapid hiring wave has meant nonstop onboarding, training sessions, ID badges and new desk setups, said Kant. “Now, we’re in the thick of it.”