Salesforce and the U.S. Air Force recently inked a $72 million contract, described as a natural evolution of the current state of military operations that aligns with the “massive revolution” kickstarted by artificial intelligence.
The $72 million Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) is described by the longtime cloud-based industry stalwart as an effort to accelerate digital transformation and mission readiness with Missionforce National Security, which entails the company’s focus on national security based on its work alongside the Department of Defense, the intelligence community in the Associated Aerospace and Defense Government Systems Integrator, and the defense industrial base.
This ELA will allow the Air Force to connect its digital infrastructure to what it describes as a single interoperable platform to provide a comprehensive mission view across personnel, recruiting and logistics. It comes on the heels of the U.S. Army awarding Salesforce with a $5.6 billion, 10-year Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract in January 2026, broadening the company’s scope and impact across the Pentagon.
For Salesforce, which started in 1999, bringing enterprise class software to the cloud led to program cohesion across the federal government by 2006 and, ultimately, became intertwined with the DOD in 2014.
This recent contract stems from an Air Force task order on the IDIQ that consolidated separate contracts over the years into one single contract.
“The Department of the Air Force—their validation, their belief in leveraging Salesforce for their mission, their operations—this really gets to the heart of the work that Salesforce has done over the last 12-plus years to build the business that is required to be able to support prime contracts with the Department of War and the intelligence community, having the business infrastructure and the systems, personnel and procedures in place to be able to be that prime contractor that the DOW requires,” Bill Pessin, senior vice president of national security at Salesforce, told Military.com.
New Contract Pushes Digital Infrastructure
The Air Force’s latest ability to connect its digital infrastructure to Salesforce and leverage a single, comprehensive mission view will pay dividends, proponents said.
“To maintain our competitive advantage, the Department of the Air Force must rapidly field modernized, secure and interoperable data capabilities,” Dr. Keith L. Hardiman, deputy chief information officer of the Air Force, said in a statement. “Department of the Air Force leveraging enterprise-wide contract vehicles accelerates our procurement timelines, optimizes resource allocation, and ensures our Airmen and Guardians are equipped with the agile technology necessary for today’s dynamic mission environments.”
Missionforce National Security will empower the U.S. Air Force and Space Force to do the following, per Salesforce:
- Accelerate decision velocity with enhanced situational awareness and complete visibility across operations, giving the Air Force the ability to make faster, more informed decisions and gain a decisive edge.
- Provide personalized support for service members, from recruitment to deployment, benefits, and veteran transition to civilian life.
- Improve Airmen and Guardian readiness with streamlined personnel management and training, removing administrative friction.
- Modernize logistics by transitioning operations to an automated enterprise solution that integrates disparate data streams “into a single pane of glass” for real-time visibility, acquisition management, and predictive resource forecasting.
- Drive DAF innovation with the best of private sector innovation, scaling cutting-edge capabilities on demand, rapidly innovating with low-code and no-code tools, and deploying new applications “at the speed of the mission.”
Pessin said the company possesses a unique vantage point and opportunity based on its services, with large software companies like Salesforce sometimes going down the path of conducting single accreditations by working directly with the Air Force.
The other path, so to speak, is the one Salesforce took: sticking to commercial, core capabilities and offering the DOD capabilities in a similar fashion. That requires a “significant” amount of investment, Pessin admitted, but to have something that’s served across an entity like the DOD provides “the best platform value for the customers by allowing this technology to stay as close to the commercial core as can be.”
Just as for commercial customers, Salesforce conducts updates across its systems for federal partners as well—be it DOD or the intelligence community. That is a major reason why having this one broad platform can pay major dividends.
“So, a major update or upgrade rolls out for Salesforce worldwide within a few weeks, all of our customers across all of our government clouds all get those updates,” he said.
AI ‘Revolution’
The rapid infusion of artificial intelligence and everyday life, whether in the civilian or military world, is changing the world. Some argue for the better.
Pessin said that when Salesforce began in 1999, the concept of using one overarching system on a global scale was almost “unheard of.” Today, it’s often the opposite.
“We’re seeing this massive revolution as a result of AI, the pace at which the technology is changing now is breathtaking,” Pessin said. “What is rolled out today 90 days from now will be different.”
He used the example of an electric vehicle requiring consistent updates to maintain software and safety standards. In the case of Salesforce and its U.S. military contracts, having one system in place allows for “a river of innovation” to meet customers where they are and in a compliant and secure manner.
“That allows them to remain future-proofed in this technology that we’re investing in, and that they themselves are investing in,” he said.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges, of course. Pessin said that with this technological proliferation comes more digital responsibility, which leads companies like his to encourage employees to become comfortable with AI and explore its boundaries. The more that people use it, be it at work or in their personal lives, the outcomes should ideally be more beneficial for all—whether it’s the company offering the tech, or the consumers using it.
“It’s done so with experience that comes from using it every day, being encouraged to use it every day, and at Salesforce I think that’s really important,” Pessin added. “We talk about this frequently with our customers. We routinely engage with customers, or they’re asking us, ‘How do we do it? How are we leveraging AI and our everyday lives at Salesforce?'”
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