Business spotlight: How AI is helping this business succeed

This article is a part of our Risk + Reward series. Capital One Business and Inc. partnered to survey 349 business leaders in November 2025 to explore the factors that affect how they weigh business risks and rewards in navigating modern business landscapes.

Recent times have tested Aerobodies, which provides health, wellness and process improvement solutions for government agencies and corporations. “From very large to very small companies, if you’re doing federal work, the change in administration was a shake-up,” says Fran Dean-Bishop, founder and CEO of Aerobodies, based in Alexandria, Virginia. Dean-Bishop’s company has thrived because it continually shifts gears.

Dean-Bishop can list the many times she’s adjusted her business’s direction, expanding services and markets since founding the company in 1997. “As a federal contractor, when change comes, you better be ready to adjust to it,” she shares. These adjustments and three-year revenue growth of 102% helped Aerobodies earn its spot on the 2025 Inc. 5000 list.

Aerobodies recently pivoted into artificial intelligence (AI), a move that the government encouraged by saying vendors could use AI, she explains. The company first dove into AI internally, developing a product that helps leaders decide which projects to bid on, one of a business’s biggest challenges, Dean-Bishop says. “You are limited by the number of opportunities you can go after.” Large consulting companies may have dozens of people focusing on one request for proposal; Aerobodies has just two. “As a small, woman-owned business competing with everybody, you have to level the playing field. AI allows us to do that.”

Aerobodies’ AI tool helps leaders choose bid opportunities, considering more options than manual evaluation allows. AI also helps staff write proposals and offer more competitive service pricing.

Aerobodies is leveraging what it learns to test new products with clients. It’s not alone. The 2025 Risk + Reward survey by Capital One and Inc. found that technology is a dominant force of change for the majority surveyed. Seventy-seven percent of respondents said their companies were transforming their technology infrastructure and solutions, while 71% used AI and classified themselves within the “advanced beginners” to “competent” range.

“Our company is heavily involved in behavioral health and health management. We are developing tools that our clients need to interface with customers, such as answering client calls, assessments and intake—things we can speed up drastically with AI,” Dean-Bishop explains. Aerobodies also offers a knowledge assistant tool, a chief wellness officer assistant tool and a talent management diagnostic tool. “We’re developing our own set of tools that we can take as a digital bench into small and midsize companies to help them not only automate but do business faster so they can level their own playing field.”

Dean-Bishop sees alignment between Aerobodies and the federal marketplace, given the administration’s push to find ways to retool and reskill the workforce with AI. Aerobodies differentiates itself through AI training certification, offering formal AI training to companies. “I’m able to speak to a customer about what our own innovation looks like internally and how we’re training our employees. That is a game changer, because I know it is not happening with some of our competitors,” she says. 

AI is also changing the way entrepreneurs envision scaling. Instead of focusing on employee count, Dean-Bishop ensures her team members are passionate about the work and have transformative ideas. She wants to build products that are different from what the market has seen before. Aerobodies holds a monthly innovation lab where team members develop AI solutions to existing workflow problems, sharing them internally. “I’ve been blown away with what they’ve developed,” she says.

To grow, businesses should take advantage of available financial resources. Dean-Bishop has relied on Capital One to help Aerobodies ensure solid business savings and lines of credit, but also for investing funds. Capital One’s website allows her to track credit usage easily. “When we log in to the account, we can see what our credit score is on a regular basis. What does that look like in terms of your credit? How should you be thinking about your financials? Everybody does that. I think they do a really good job, though, thinking about it as a small business,” she says.

With just 25 employees, Aerobodies competes against larger companies. “It’s about leveraging our strengths. Other companies may be bigger, but they haven’t been around longer,” she says. Dean-Bishop notes that she got into this business early and has a wide breadth of experience in multiple industries and markets. “Sometimes people underestimate you when you’re small—on how fast you can move and bring innovations to old problems. I think that’s what’s made us incredibly successful with some of our contract wins.”