Salesforce launches ‘Missionforce,’ an AI unit for national security
Salesforce is ramping up its role in the national security space with the launch of Missionforce, a new business unit dedicated to embedding artificial intelligence into defense operations.
Announced Tuesday, Missionforce will focus on modernizing three key areas of military and defense workflows: personnel, logistics, and decision-making, according to a company press release. The unit will be led by Kendall Collins, who joined Salesforce in 2023 and currently serves as chief business officer and chief of staff to CEO Marc Benioff.
“With Missionforce, we’ll now bring the best of AI, cloud, and platform technology from the private sector to modernize critical areas including personnel, logistics, and analytics,” Collins said. “The goal is simple: to help our warfighters and the organizations that support them operate smarter, faster, and more efficiently. There’s never been a more important time to serve those who serve.”
Building on Government Ties
Salesforce is no stranger to U.S. government contracts. Over the years, the company has worked with federal agencies and multiple branches of the U.S. military, including the Army, Navy, and Air Force. However, the cloud and CRM leader does not publicly disclose how many government contracts it currently holds or the revenue it generates from them.
A Broader Tech Industry Trend
Salesforce’s move comes amid a broader surge of big tech players tailoring offerings specifically for the federal government.
- OpenAI introduced a government-specific version of ChatGPT in January and later struck a deal to provide agencies access to its enterprise tier for just $1 a year.
- Anthropic followed in August, extending its Claude AI models to government users under a similar low-cost licensing deal.
- Google rolled out “Gemini for Government” shortly afterward, offering its AI services to agencies for 47 cents for the first year.
Together, these initiatives signal a growing competition among leading AI and cloud companies to secure long-term partnerships with U.S. defense and security organizations.
Why It Matters
As AI tools become central to managing logistics, data analysis, and personnel decisions, the U.S. government is rapidly looking to private sector innovation to enhance national security capabilities. Salesforce’s Missionforce marks the company’s most explicit step yet in aligning its business strategy with those needs.
