Salesforce Launches ‘Missionforce,’ a National Security-Focused Business Unit

Salesforce is deepening its focus on national security with the launch of a new business unit named Missionforce. The company announced the formation of Missionforce on Tuesday, with a specific goal of integrating AI into defence workflows in three main areas: personnel, logistics, and decision-making, according to a company press release.

Kendall Collins, the CEO of Government Cloud at Salesforce, will lead Missionforce. Collins, who joined the company in 2023, was previously the Chief Business Officer and Chief of Staff to Salesforce 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 in the press release. “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.”

Salesforce has held contracts with the U.S. government for years, working across federal agencies and multiple branches of the U.S. military, including the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force. The company does not publicly disclose the number of government contracts it holds or the revenue it generates from them.

This move comes amid a wave of tech companies developing services specifically for the U.S. government. In January, OpenAI launched a version of ChatGPT designed for government agencies. In August, the company announced a deal with the government to provide federal agencies access to its enterprise ChatGPT tier for just $1 a year.

Following suit, Anthropic also announced a deal in August to offer the Claude chatbot to the U.S. government for $1. Additionally, Google introduced “Gemini for Government” in late August, offering its AI services to federal agencies at a discounted rate of 47 cents for the first year.