Q&A: Salesforce SVP of National Security Shares New Partnership With Air Force

For the DAF, that work is already underway. By connecting existing systems and data silos into a single entity with Missionforce National Security, we’re delivering a unified mission view across operations and transforming the workflows that most directly affect the mission and the work airmen and guardians do every day. We are leaning heavily into operational capabilities — specifically logistics, fleet and asset readiness, personnel management, and enhanced situational awareness — because that is where data fragmentation and slow systems hurt the warfighter the most.

With this foundation in place, the DAF can move fast to deploy Agentforce — our specialized layer for building, deploying and governing compliant AI agents at scale — and create a true Agentic Defense Enterprise. The DAF is already evaluating how autonomous AI agents can act as true force multipliers to take on complex and time-sensitive workflows where decision speed is most critical.

FEDTECH: Missionforce is described as “purpose-built” for the tactical edge. What did Salesforce have to build or change about its core platform to meet national security requirements that wouldn’t apply to a commercial customer?

PESSIN: Salesforce has a long track record of supporting the Department of War and our Intelligence Community, and we’ve made deep investments to ensure our capabilities meet the most stringent security and compliance requirements. We’ve also invested in aligning the right people, processes and technology to ensure we have the infrastructure and domain expertise needed to scale alongside them.

Missionforce National Security operationalizes all of this to ensure we’re delivering relevant, secure and compliant innovation to the most sensitive environments where readiness, resilience and speed are mission-critical.

We were among the first to achieve DoD ATO for commercial enterprise capabilities, making our software accessible across all Department of War components. Further, we invested to air-gap our Government Cloud, which is accredited to operate at the Top Secret level, meaning authorized national security agencies can use Salesforce to modernize operations to move at mission speed.

FEDTECH: How do you anticipate the DAF will use autonomous AI agents, and what guardrails or governance frameworks are in place to ensure those agents operate within the department's security requirements?

PESSIN: The DAF is piloting Agentforce, and we're in active testing mode. The focus is on how autonomous AI agents can increase efficiency and effectiveness — automating complex workflows and supporting decision-making at the edge so that airmen and guardians can focus on higher-order mission priorities.

Missionforce National Security connects the data, systems and workflows that airmen and guardians depend on into a single operational view, so that when Agentforce agents are deployed at scale, they'll be working with the full context they need to drive real mission outcomes.

Imagine an AI agent that continuously monitors aircraft maintenance schedules, parts inventory and technician availability across multiple bases — automatically flagging readiness gaps, initiating procurement workflows and surfacing recommended actions to the commander, all before a human would have had time to pull the first report. Or consider the administrative burden of managing deployment orders, training certifications and personnel assignments across thousands of airmen. An Agentforce agent will be able to handle the coordination and paperwork autonomously, escalating only the decisions that require human judgment — cutting processing time from days to minutes.

LEARN WHY: The pace of AI evolution demands a sense of urgency.

FEDTECH: Given your seat on the board of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, which gives you visibility into broader national security priorities, how do you see this kind of enterprise platform approach fitting into the wider defense modernization strategy, particularly as other military branches look at similar transformations?

PESSIN: It is incredibly clear that we are at a critical inflection point in the global AI race, which has become the defining technological battleground of this century. When you look across the broader national security and intelligence ecosystem, our primary challenge is rarely a lack of data; it is the fragmentation of that data across legacy, disconnected silos, and employing the greatest of American innovation to support our intelligence officers and warfighters. INSA’s focus on aligning academia, industry and government to address these challenges has never been more relevant, and I’m honored to work alongside the incredible INSA staff and my fellow board members in this important endeavor.

The Department of War and Intelligence Community simply cannot maintain their strategic edge in great power competition if our service members are bogged down by administrative friction and dated, stovepiped software. That is exactly why a secure, enterprise platform approach is foundational to the wider modernization initiatives.

As other national security agencies look to execute their own digital transformations, the Air Force ELA serves as a repeatable operational blueprint. By evolving operations to a unified, interoperable platform, you can rapidly push advanced operational capabilities — such as real-time fleet supply chain visibility, predictive maintenance and end-to-end personnel readiness — directly to the tactical edge where it matters most. This is not just an IT upgrade; it is about accelerating decision velocity and returning hours back to the mission. It’s about moving faster, faster.