Veterans Affairs awards Salesforce $1.6B to deploy AI agents across veteran services

Veterans Affairs signs $1.6B deal for an army of Salesforce AI agents

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded Salesforce a $1.6 billion, three-year contract to spread AI through the government service. The CRM giant has inked an Agentic Enterprise License Agreement (AELA), which, according to Salesforce, will give VA employees access to agentic AI, integrated data, and advanced collaboration tools intended to cut their admin workload. "Every minute a VA employee spends navigating disconnected systems is a minute not spent serving a Veteran," said Kendall Collins, CEO of Salesforce's defense and government unit. "Salesforce gives VA a trusted foundation to connect its people, data, and workflows across the department. The goal is simple: reduce administrative burden, help employees get to the right information faster, and give them more time to deliver the care and benefits Veterans have earned." Salesforce announced the AELA in October last year amid debate about how application vendors would commercialize their drive to embed AI agents in software. It offers a flat, seat-based arrangement the company claims is popular among customers. Earlier this year, Gartner cautioned that it expects the agreements will be converted into defined quantity contracts toward their end, when unchecked usage may become costly. Salesforce denied that it would move away from capped plans. Renewals would remain flexible, it said. Among the projects the agreement will be used to support is an around-the-clock "virtual contact center" that deploys AI agents directly into existing VA workflows to retrieve information during live calls, triage cases, and automate benefits verification. Also in the offing is an "agentic operating system" based on Slack and already used in some VA hospitals. Oracle is rolling out a new electronic health record system at the VA, although further deployments were suspended in April 2023 after concerns were raised about patient safety. The rollout was rebooted in February last year, with the work continuing under the original $9.99 billion agreement signed in 2018. Oracle needn't feel downhearted about missing out on the VA's agent deal, though. Big Red has picked up a contract of its own this week, with the US Department of Defense signing an Enterprise Software Agreement (ESA) worth nearly $7 billion over as many as ten years. The department estimated that consolidating fragmented, one-off purchases under the agreement will save taxpayers at least $441 million over its lifetime. ®

VA Awards Salesforce $1.6 Billion Contract to Transform Veteran Care and Services

Salesforce announced that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded the company, through its distribution network, a $1,600 million, three-year, Agentic Enterprise License Agreement (AELA). Through the agreement, VA will leverage Missionforce to modernize care and service delivery and help provide more timely, consistent, and connected experiences for America?s Veterans. The AELA is a one-year contract with the option for two additional one-year renewals, with a total contract ceiling of $1,600 million. VA provides healthcare, benefits, and other essential services to more than 17 million Veterans, as well as their families and caregivers. Across 170 VA medical centers and more than 1,100 Veterans Health Administration (VHA) outpatient clinics, VA provided more than 82 million direct-care appointments in Fiscal year 2025. As demand for services continues to grow, VA sought a more connected approach to scale support while reducing administrative burden so staff could spend more time serving Veterans. As part of its Veterans First mandate, VA is advancing modernization, security, and AI to improve access, outcomes, and accountability across Veteran-facing programs. Missionforce will help VA teams deliver faster, more personalized benefits and care for Veterans by connecting workflows and systems across the department and deploying FedRAMP High-authorized and HIPAA-ready AI agents. Through the new AELA, VA is building on its existing Salesforce deployments to expand and enhance capabilities across three critical areas: AI-powered support and 24/7 care coordination; Connected teams for faster Veteran care; Unified data and actionable insights for enhanced care. Agentforce Public Sector and Agentforce Health enable VA to provide 24/7 virtual contact center support for patient triage, intake, and care coordination. Trusted AI agents deployed directly into existing VA workflows will surface real-time knowledge during live calls, instantly route and triage cases, and automate benefits verification, freeing overstretched staff to focus on direct Veteran support that matters most. Already deployed across over 150 VA medical and outpatient centers, Slack serves as the connective layer across every team, facility, system, data platform, and workflow to provide staff with a single place to access information, collaborate, and act. Building on VA?s Unified Patient Scheduling initiative, which is designed to streamline community care scheduling across more than 40,000 provider services nationwide, Salesforce will partner with VA to bolster scheduling efforts through capabilities that support Veteran communications, provider engagement, workflow coordination, and access intelligence. Together, these efforts will support VA?s goal of reducing the time required to schedule an appointment from an average of 28 days to minutes once fully deployed. With MuleSoft and Data 360, Missionforce securely integrates VA?s legacy platforms into a single, trusted data layer. This eliminates the friction of disconnected systems and gives VA staff and AI agents a complete, real-time view of each Veteran for faster, personalized care and benefits delivery. Tableau turns this unified data into mission-critical insights ? including daily snap reports, claims processing dashboards, and employee performance reporting ? giving leadership the real-time visibility to make smarter, faster decisions. These innovations build on VA?s already-deployed Salesforce foundation that supports key programs and capabilities, including Veteran Crisis Line, VHA agentic operating system, VA Health Connect, and SQUARES.