Air Force Signs $72M Salesforce Deal to Power AI-Driven Operations

The U.S. Air Force has entered into a $72 million enterprise license agreement (ELA) with Salesforce to move its fragmented point solutions onto a single interoperable platform.  

The ELA was made under Salesforce’s recent $5.6 billion contract with the Department of Defense (DOD) – rebranded as the Department of War by the Trump administration – and its U.S. Army and Air Force components. That indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract includes a five-year base ordering period and a five-year optional order period and is aimed at strengthening the DOD’s modernization efforts. 

Salesforce said the DAF will leverage the company’s Missionforce National Security unit to “modernize personnel management, enhance situational awareness, and establish a scalable foundation for future AI deployments across the department.” 

According to Salesforce, the agreement will enable the DAF and the U.S. Space Force to: 

• Speed decision-making with improved situational awareness and complete visibility across operations through a single mission view. 

• Offer warfighters personalized support from recruitment to transitioning to civilian life as a veteran. 

• Improve airman and guardian readiness with streamlined workforce management and training. 

• Modernize logistics by using automated enterprise solutions with real-time visibility, acquisition management, and predictive resource forecasting. 

• Power DAF innovation by scaling cutting-edge capabilities on demand. 

Eventually, the ELA’s outcomes will also provide the DAF access to agentic AI. Salesforce said the DAF now has access to Agentforce, which is Salesforce’s “agentic layer for building, deploying, and governing compliant AI agents.”  

The company said the DAF is now “testing how these tools can serve as force multipliers to automate complex workflows and support decision-making at the edge.” 

Bolstering AI capabilities across the DOD has been a top priority for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who established the department’s AI acceleration strategy earlier this year. 

“This new agreement will operationalize Missionforce across the … [DAF],” Kendall Collins, CEO of Missionforce and government cloud, said in a statement. “With a single interoperable platform, we are providing the digital foundation for an agentic enterprise and mission orchestration at scale.” 

Salesforce explained that by using the IDIQ contract vehicle, the DAF can map to DOD directives that direct components to consolidate contracts, reduce the number of contract actions, and achieve greater savings.  

“To maintain our competitive advantage, the … [DAF] must rapidly field modernized, secure, and interoperable data capabilities,” Keith Hardiman, deputy chief information officer for the DAF, said in a statement. 

“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,” Hardiman added.