A focal point of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s restructuring of the military is efficiency via new technology. In a March 2025 memo, SecWar made purchasing modern, commercial software a top priority for the Pentagon. The Department of War has entered into contracts with tech companies like OpenAI and xAI, but the latest deal with Salesforce is a big one.
On January 26, 2026, the San Francisco-based company announced a $5.6 billion, 10-year contract with the U.S. Army.
“This new contract, which builds on more than a decade-long relationship between Salesforce and the U.S. Armed Forces, will operationalize Missionforce across the Army and DOW, delivering trusted data and sales interoperability, and supporting the DOW’s transition into an agentic enterprise,” Missionforce CEO Kendall Collins said in a Salesforce press release. “From recruiting to the tactical edge, Salesforce is equipping our forces with technology built for today’s dynamic environments–streamlining operations, increasing readiness, and enabling those who serve to stay focused on the mission.”
With Missionforce, Army recruiters will have access to Salesforce’s Slack messaging app. “Recruiters can now leverage out-of-the-box, mobile capabilities that make it easy to work in the field,” Salesforce said in the press release. “This has created an intuitive, modern, and real-time experience for recruits while giving recruiters valuable time back in their days to convert more leads into accessions.”
After a soldier enters its ranks, the Army has to manage that person’s talent and career. To that end, Salesforce and the Army completed a significant modernization of Human Resource Command’s main service center. It may be difficult to believe for a government project, but Salesforce reports that it was completed four months ahead of schedule and, wait for it… more than $1 million under budget.
With Salesforce Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, HRC’s 3,000 employees and soldiers will be empowered with their own AI support agent, which could help to optimize assignments and streamline orders.
Salesforce is vague in its press release, but the company notes that it will provide the Army with “powerful insights and up-to-date data analytics provide enhanced situational awareness and complete visibility across personnel, operations, and logistics, enabling faster, more informed decisions.”
Great buzzwords, but what does that mean? Have you ever sat in on a readiness briefing where S-1 just makes up personnel numbers and S-3’s plans are based on the roll of a set of Dungeons & Dragons dice? Missionforce won’t do that, but instead use real data pulled from across the force.
With increased recruiting competition from the civilian sector, the Army is upgrading the way that it conducts day-to-day operations in order to attract talented Americans to serve. Using AI, CRM, and data analytics, Salesforce could be a significant step forward for the Army on this path.
