News & Events

From Times Union / By Larry Rulison / Jan 24, 2026

SCHENECTADY — As most Americans are just getting used to what life is like with artificial intelligence available at their fingertips, Antonio Civitella has been using AI to supercharge his business.

The CEO of Transfinder, a Schenectady-based software company best known for its bus routing software for school districts, says AI is not doing his employees' jobs. What it is doing is freeing up their days from mundane tasks and helping them realize their full potential.

“We are doing so much with AI, and AI makes us more efficient,” Civitella said. “AI helps us get back to the basics. It gets rid of some of the tasks that we let AI do.”

Civitella says the perfect example of AI assisting his employees is during sales presentations. Each presentation takes 90 minutes. 

“And various things are discussed and talked about, right? Takeaways. A list of to-dos at the end. Well, we use AI to summarize a 90-minute presentation. It tells us what you promised to do, what were the takeaways? All those things,” Civitella said.

In the past, a Transfinder employee would have to do all this by hand. Now it’s done by AI. Hours of tedious work boiled down to a few minutes.

“Now, a transcript is created as we do the presentation. That transcript is immediately dumped into our AI model (and summarized). It goes down to two, three pages (from 150),” Civitella said. “And it’s very good. Those are the things that are game-changers. It’s meant to make you better. And this is where I am super excited. I think people that are worried about AI, I understand why. All of a sudden, everyone has a personal assistant.”

Civitella made the comments on Thursday, the day that Transfinder released its annual financial results. For the 28th consecutive year, Transfinder has achieved record revenue for the year. In 2025, the company earned $50.15 million in revenue, a 19% increase over 2024.

Civitella said that hardware sales increased 22% in 2025, reaching $11.5 million. The company is also increasing its public safety routing software for police departments. The Schenectady Police Department was secured as a client in 2025.

With all that revenue coming in, Transfinder purchased a custom-made LED screen for its conference room. It takes up nearly the whole wall, and it has theater-style audio and video capabilities.

“It’s one of the single most expensive things we ever bought,” Civitella said.

During a wide-ranging interview about the business, AI and the state of global business affairs, Civitella spoke enthusiastically about the business. He says that AI is a threat to many technology businesses, but hard work remains the best way to get ahead.

“AI levels the playing field, which means a brand-new company could walk in, literally understand what we do in six months, I would give them. They could replicate everything we have with our technology, which is why we have invested a significant amount (in filing) patents. We own a lot of patents now for us to protect ourselves against someone just copying us,” Civitella said.

“But the one thing you can’t copy, which AI will not help you with, is getting as many clients as we have. You can try to replicate our technology right now to the color and the font on your website, but you won’t have the clients that we have, and that’s a big difference,” Civitella said.

And while international tensions with China have stoked anti-globalist economic policies in the United States government, Civitella has doubled down on global trade, with two innovation centers in China and India where the company has offices. Civitella said those offices are critical to his company. And Transfinder spends a lot of time making sure those offices are thriving. The company also has an office in Austin, Texas.

“Without having all three, we wouldn’t be where we are right now,” Civitella said. “These are extremely smart people. We talked about the culture. We have beautiful offices in amazing locations in both Mumbai and Shanghai. These are top-notch offices. Joe (the company’s chief operating officer) and I personally have picked these offices. We went to the train station, got off the train and walked to the offices. We timed it all along the way. Those details go a long way because it’s authentic. We want to make sure they feel appreciated. And we want them to have the latest technology at their fingertips.”

Transfinder has been on a hiring spree. The company had 212 employees at the end of 2025 and has hired six new people so far in 2026, with a seventh being onboarded next week. Civitella says that the company’s social media marketing has really paid off in the age of AI.

“People are searching and finding us at a higher rate now,” Civitella said. “That’s because they’re using AI to search for companies to work for. And we’re on the good side. In 2025, we had more than double the applicants that we did in 2024. We know that if you’re looking for a job, clearly, there’s a lot of job sites out there for you to search. But there’s also just a simple way, just to start typing. And we rank high (in searches).”