This week, Insperity announced its presenting sponsorship of the 2026 Inc. 5000 Conference, including a panel I'm joining on AI and people strategy. Before I get on stage, I want to talk about why Insperity is in our story at all.The short answer: PredictAP pays 100% of employee healthcare, starting on an employee's first day. We can offer benefits that are usually out of reach for a startup because we work with Insperity, a provider of HR and business performance solutions. PredictAP is the AI invoice coding platform that 130+ real estate firms use to process 7 million invoices a year.
Most companies take care of their people. They do what they must: the required benefits, the standard plan, the employee share of the premium that creeps up every January.
I spent more than two decades in finance and real estate. Good firms, good people. But the benefits line was usually drawn at "what do we have to do?" instead of "what could we do?" Not out of malice. That's just how the spreadsheet gets built.
When I started PredictAP in 2020, I wanted to ask the other question. Run the company the way I wish I'd been treated. Honestly, that was part of why I wanted to start a company at all.
Turns out, it's not easy. A small company has no buying power with insurance carriers. One bad year of claims can wreck a renewal. Top-quality benefits cost a startup far more per person than they cost a big firm.
So a lot of founders say "we'll get there when we're bigger." I get it. But if you're the new hire with two kids, a few hundred dollars a month out of your paycheck for family coverage is real money. We'd rather you didn't have to think about it. So we pay 100%, from day one. No waiting period.
This is where I give credit. Insperity runs HR and benefits for thousands of businesses, and that scale is the point. Through Insperity, a company our size gets the kind of benefits a much bigger firm would offer. Our people get real plans and someone to call when a claim gets weird.
I'm an accountant by background. Could I run benefits administration myself? Probably. Would I get it wrong? Also probably. Some things you build. Some things you hand to people who are the best at them. Same advice I give our customers about AP.
Insperity is a presenting sponsor of the 2026 Inc. 5000 Conference in Dallas. I'm joining them on stage for "A Marriage of Minds: Harmonizing AI and People Strategies" on Thursday, October 15, from 2:20 to 2:50 p.m., with Megg Withinton of Insperity and Ben Eubanks of Lighthouse Research & Advisory.
Research from Insperity and Lighthouse found that 83% of leaders say AI augments their people. That matches what I see in AP. AI won't take your job. People who use AI will take the jobs of people who don't. Let software handle the routine and save human judgment for the exceptions.
Take care of your people, then give them better tools. In that order. You don't have to be big to do it, but you do have to pick the right partners. For benefits, ours is Insperity.
If you're at the Inc. 5000 Conference, come find me after the session. Happy to talk benefits, AI, or invoices. Mostly invoices.
David Stifter is Founder and CEO of PredictAP, the AI invoice coding platform that 130+ real estate firms use to process 7 million invoices a year. Before founding PredictAP in 2020, he spent nearly two decades at Colony Capital (now DigitalBridge), where as Managing Director and functional CTO he ran Yardi and finance technology across a $60 billion-plus platform. Accountant by background, geek at heart.