An AI pilot program identified between $14.5 million and $49.5 million worth of annual “opportunities” for Manatee County to cut costs, but the program indicated those savings could rise up to $110 million.
Robert Salvador, founder of DigiBuild, said at the Aug. 25 Manatee County Commission meeting that he was there to talk about “efficiency opportunities, not waste or a bad job that Manatee County is doing.”
In October 2025, Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia claimed Manatee County “overspent” $112.4 million in fiscal year 2025.
For $4,900, the AI pilot analyzed the same documents Manatee County submitted to the Department of Government Efficiency during the state’s audit in August 2025, which covered fiscal years 2021-2026. The one exception was several boxes of records that the clerk’s office only has on paper.
Otherwise, Salvador said AI agents crawled through almost $2.5 billion dollars worth of procurement activity, over 147,000 records and nearly 2,300 active vendor contracts.
IBM defines an AI agent as “a system that autonomously performs tasks by designing workflows with available tools.”
When the pilot was first pitched to commissioners in December, Interim Deputy County Administrator Stephanie Garrison said she looked at the pilot as “an opportunity for a third party software to actually verify what we've been saying all along, which is Manatee County has justifiably spent these dollars or has used these dollars for public good.”
While the report only identifies up to $49.5 million in efficiency opportunities, it notes that if the program accessed all the county’s records, it could expand on those opportunities and bring the range up to between $75 million and $110 million.
Part of the reasoning behind that projection is that additional records would unlock additional categories to review and continuous monitoring captures recurring patterns in near-real time versus retrospectively.
The pilot searched for red flags among 23 categories from “change order overruns” to “blatant fraud.” The report does not detail each red flag, but it provides the categories and monetary values that led to the pilot's estimated savings amounts.
After scouring procurement records, the pilot initially identified $164 million in contracts as “non-competitively awarded,” resulting in an estimated savings of between $8 million and $16 million.
The pilot's “confidence level” was rated “moderate." The report notes, “Confidence levels reflect the strength of the underlying evidence, not the magnitude of the estimates.”
| FindingsThe table below represents DigiBuild's findings and how the AI pilot came to its estimate of between $14.5 million and $49.5 million in potential savings. The estimates are annual potential savings. | |---|---|---|---| | Category | Low estimate | High estimate | Confidence | | Contract structure risks | $4 million | $8 million | Moderate | | Change order trend analysis | $3 million | $20 million | Moderate | | Competitive procurement gap | $1.6 million | $3 million | Moderate | | Licensing & compliance review | $1 million | $4 million | Moderate | | Purchase order splitting | $2 million | $5 million | Moderate | | Above-market pricing | $1.5 million | $3.5 million | Moderate | | Technology/software | $580,000 | $1.1 million | Moderate | | Tangible personal property tax | $290,000 | $610,000 | Moderate | | Vendor consolidation | $500,000 | $2 million | Moderate | | Hospitality tax compliance | $30,000 | $310,000 | Low |
The report also includes next steps.
For procurement, the recommendation is for county staff to "review purchase order transaction patterns for the three high-volume vendors specifically — looking at same-day, same-vendor transactions — to evaluate opportunities for procurement consolidation and process optimization."
Commissioner Jason Bearden was particularly wary of the program for security reasons and the value moving forward based on a 2025 MIT report.
The executive summary in MIT's report states: "Despite $30–40 billion in enterprise investment into GenAI, this report uncovers a surprising result in that 95% of organizations are getting zero return."
While the initial pilot only cost $4,900, its recommendations include Manatee County continuously using an AI-assisted contract compliance tool and AI procurement tool.
Bearden noted that the county's data went into DigiBuild's large language model, not the county's. LLMs essentially make predictions based off large amounts of data.
"Then, you've got us by the hook," Bearden told Salvador. "You come up with a price later on down the road and say, 'Oh well, it's going to cost you $15 million now.'"
Bearden added that the county would be stuck because DigiBuild would hold all the data, and the county would have to start from scratch.
He hypothesized that the world could be in the midst of an AI bubble, just like the former dot-com bubble, a situation in which a mass amount of AI businesses could suddenly go bankrupt.
"We just jumped into this," Bearden said. "We've got to push the brakes on this and really analyze the strategy on what we're doing moving forward when it comes to giving our data out to a company."
DigiBuild’s website describes it as a “construction procurement platform helping general contractors, subcontractors and owners find materials faster, cut costs and keep projects on schedule."
The original company presented to commissioners in December was PoliTech AI, another company founded by Salvador.
An informational video used to crowdfund for PoliTech describes the company as “revolutionizing digital persuasion.” Its tagline on the investment platform Republic is “AI that sells for you — trusted by tech firms, ETFs and Congress members."
Links for PoliTech now redirect to Promota AI's website.
When originally presenting PoliTech to commissioners in December, Garrison said the firm was recommended to Manatee County by its state DOGE partners.
Salvador’s LinkedIn profile photo features him with Gov. Ron DeSantis, for whom he hosted a crypto fundraiser for when DeSantis was running for president in 2024. Salvador also attended a retreat for donors after DeSantis dropped out of the presidential race.
Salvador’s LinkedIn profile names him as the CEO of Promota since August 2024 and a Florida DOGE advisor since February 2026.
According to its website, Promota best fits the task at hand of auditing Manatee County’s records for spending efficiencies:
“Promota connects government data and spending in categories, such as procurement, licensing, permitting, vendor information, grants and many other types of taxpayer spending to find and eliminate waste while modernizing government systems.”
The information was presented to commissioners, but county staff will have to follow up on the report's recommendations to see any actual savings.
