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The RegisterMakes agreement under nose of Oracle, which gets its own $7 billion defense deal
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. ®Get AI news in your inbox
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