VA Announces Major AI Integration Through Partnership With Salesforce
The Department of Veterans Affairs has committed to integrating Artificial Intelligence into its operations through a partnership with Salesforce.
VA Announces Major AI Integration Through Partnership With Salesforce
Salesforce is a cloud-based Customer Relationship Management software company meant to help businesses manage sales, clients, and customer service.
This company announced a three-year partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs to use something called Missionforce “to modernize care and service delivery and help provide more timely, consistent, and connected experiences for America’s Veterans,” according to a Salesforce press release.
“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.”
The press release adds, “Salesforce will provide a unified foundation across the department, equipping VA employees with trusted agentic AI, integrated data, and advanced collaboration tools that can reduce administrative friction and give staff more time to serve Veterans.”
The Partnership
The Department of Veterans Affairs awarded Salesforce a three-year $1.6 billion contract on July 24, 2026, one that operates as a so-called “Agentic Enterprise License Agreement.”
This agreement, delivered through the Missionforce government division of Salesforce, is part of an attempt to modernize care delivery across 170 medical centers and more than 1,100 outpatient clinics.
Who Benefits?
The integration of AI into VA operations, for better or worse, potentially affects more than 17 million veterans, family members, and caregivers. receive services through the department.
Veterans often deal with long wait times when scheduling community care appointments, which historically averaged 28 days. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ partnership with Salesforce integrates scheduling tools across more than 40,000 provider services nationwide.
The VA wants us to believe this use of AI will bring scheduling times down to minutes. Only time will tell, as the Department of Veterans Affairs has experienced major technical problems with major computer upgrade projects in years past. The VA and Salesforce claims for this partnership also include the following:
- Faster Response Times: VA call center agents will use artificial intelligence tools during phone calls to retrieve medical histories and verify benefits, reducing hold times.
- Continuous Access: Enrollees can access 24/7 virtual intake and triage support through VA Health Connect, which has handled over 40.6 million calls to date.
- Data Security: Software deployments meet FedRAMP High authorization requirements and HIPAA standards to protect personal medical records.
At press time, this partnership is not 100% operational, and many of the promised features of the program listed above will only be available once “fully deployed”.
About the author
Editor-in-Chief Joe Wallace is a 13-year veteran of the United States Air Force and a former reporter/editor for Air Force Television News and the Pentagon Channel. His freelance work includes contract work for Motorola, VALoans.com, and Credit Karma. He is co-founder of Dim Art House in Springfield, Illinois, and spends his non-writing time as an abstract painter, independent publisher, and occasional filmmaker.
