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Mia Jordan

Industry Advisor for Public Sector Transformation

Salesforce

Inside the AI shift in government: 11 perspectives on public sector ops transformation

Public sector transformation is entering a critical phase, driven by the rise of agentic AI and digital labor that doesn’t just automate, it adapts. But the biggest obstacle isn’t the technology. It’s the systems, silos and culture built for a slower, pre-AI world.TheCUBE’s John Furrier discusses public sector transformation.What’s really holding back progress in the public sector isn’t a lack of innovation — it’s the difficulty of adoption. From aging infrastructure to deeply rooted bureaucracies, systemic inertia remains the biggest obstacle. Meanwhile, AI is rapidly reshaping the role of government, raising the stakes for timely transformation, according to theCUBE’s John Furrier

play_circle_outline Impact of AI in public services and agencies

play_circle_outline FedRAMP High accreditation for Salesforce products

play_circle_outline Role of AI in enhancing productivity and decision-making

play_circle_outline Organizational change management for AI adoption

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Mia Jordan, Salesforce

Mia Jordan

Industry Advisor for Public Sector Transformation Salesforce

Mia Jordan, industry advisor for public sector transformation at Salesforce Inc., joins theCUBE’s John Furrier and Scott Hebner at the AWS Summit Washington, DC event to explore how AI is reshaping government operations. The conversation focuses on cultural and technological shifts that enable more responsive, data-driven public services.

Jordan discusses Salesforce’s recent FedRAMP High certification and its implications for supporting secret-level public sector workloads. She emphasizes how AI can enhance productivity, reduce silos and support a sh... Read more

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What is the impact of AI on public services and different agencies in both public and private sectors? add

What is the purpose and impact of FedRAMP High for Salesforce and its customers in the public sector? add

What is the reason for the excitement surrounding this administration's point of view on AI, government responsibility, and productivity? add

What is the importance of leadership involvement in promoting technology adoption in organizations? add

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Mia Jordan, Salesforce

>> Hello everyone. I'm John Furrier here with theCUBE, your host with Scott Hebner, our industry analyst from theCUBE Research. We're here at AWS DC Summit in Washington, DC. We've been covering public sector for over a decade and have watched the change and the transformation as public-private partnerships continue to come together and be more synergistic. But the big story is obviously the impact of AI and all the public services, the different agencies and all the services go on in public and private. Mia Jordan, who's an industry advisor in Transmission for Salesforce, Mia, great to have you on theCUBE.

Mia Jordan

>> Thank you for having me.

>> Thanks for coming on. I've been watching Amazon win the CIA deal. Then they come in, then the cloud becomes a thing. Go forward a decade. Now we're in an even bigger transformation. The cultural change happening here is I've never seen at this level of collision in a good way.

Mia Jordan

>> Oh my goodness.

>> Propensity for innovation is coming together, which will spawn a lot of serendipity, a lot of new things. You're seeing new companies enter, you're seeing new methods. Agents are upon us of what Salesforce is a big part of. What's your view of the big picture? What's happened in the past six months? What's happening in the industry? Share your thoughts.

Mia Jordan

>> Sure. Well, the last six months I think we've been on a campaign, a tour, so to speak, of really educating our customers about what Agentforce is, what it means to them. We are in over 22 CFO Act agencies across the federal civilian government and many of whom who have Salesforce instances. And so talking with them about how to leverage agents in the flow of work, what Agentforce means in terms of accelerating how they deliver the mission, has been, it's been a journey, right? We all know technology is moving at the speed of light right now, and so we're excited to be here today. So I have a huge announcement, which is we have achieved FedRAMP High and we are thrilled, across several of our products. GovCloud is FedRAMP High. We now are getting ready to introduce Marketing Cloud to this government audience at FedRAMP High and so many other products.

>> Explain FedRAMP High. What's the impact for Salesforce and the customers then public sector?

Mia Jordan

>> So it is an accreditation status, so there is low, moderate, and high. What high means is that our customers that work up to the secret level can process their workloads, their workflows on our platform. We are now certified to take on the mission of government and to help our customers build intelligently.

>> Scope the Salesforce impact. It's become very much in this administration, we've been seeing a lot of focus on the agencies, a lot of people curious with all the money being spent, and it's come out in the press that Salesforce is actually doing really well in public sector and we know agents are coming. We've been covering it on SiliconANGLE and theCUBE and Scott is one of our lead analysts on AI, Agent's going to make things better. As you have more complex siloed or modern legacy systems, AI allows for an abstraction.

Mia Jordan

>> Oh, yes.

>> This is a huge opportunity for Salesforce. So scope kind of where you guys are now. You've got this FedRAMP High check, more business coming. How big is the business and how does all this AI trends favor you guys?

Mia Jordan

>> So our public sector business, to include Canada, is a billion-dollar business. But the scope of which and why there's so much excitement now around this administration and its point of view on AI, and in general on government and government's responsibility to its constituents, is really based on being more productive. We hear the term efficiency, right? We know about DOGE, right, the E being efficient. But what agents are bringing to the table very different than anything else is the ability for agents to reason Agentforce is built on the Atlas Reasoning Engine. So we're not just talking about simple tasks, we're also talking about complex tasks, the real complexity around grant approvals, managing KPIs once a loan is disbursed, all those sorts of things that people have been involved in. And it's been an intense amount of both manual work, but also a lot of brain power that's required to do that.

Scott Hebner

>> So can you just bring us through a little bit of the big challenges that these public sector organizations face when they're bringing in new technologies, and then compare that to maybe a year from now as agents start to take over?

Mia Jordan

>> Oh, goodness.

Scott Hebner

>> And including, if you think about it, you're composing agents from different sources that could be on different clouds. They can be on different databases.

Mia Jordan

>> You go across clouds, yes.

Scott Hebner

>> Some of them are even going to start to work autonomously.

Mia Jordan

>> Yes.

Scott Hebner

>> It changes the game, doesn't it? And so how does FedRAMP, what are the considerations and how's that all going to change over time?

Mia Jordan

>> The FedRAMP authorization, first and foremost, is giving the government a sense of confidence that we have met the mandate that now takes away the worry of the security, the privacy, the data concerns, but more now about not the what of the technology, worrying about the infrastructure and what's under the hood, but now they get to focus on the how. How do they leverage the platform to be able to go faster, to be able to get insights in the flow of work. In terms of culture, I mean the tech is the easy part if you ask me. But the culture of government, I think there's going to be a bit of a flattening of government when you start thinking about we're going to get out of our silos. I don't know if you gentlemen know, but I'm a former federal CIO, so I know a little bit.

>> You don't like silos.

Mia Jordan

>> Oh, no, I don't.

>> Or black boxes.

Mia Jordan

>> Or black boxes. And so what I see Agentforce doing, to your point about working across silos, both organizationally but also data silos, I think it's going to be a game changer. AI, I think it's going to force all of us to work differently, to work more collaboratively, to come to an understanding that data has to be available in order to gain insights. And so I'm really excited about it.

Scott Hebner

>> Do you see the public sector organizations, your ex-CIO colleagues, are they viewing these agents as essentially digital federal workers that they're going to pair up with humans?

Mia Jordan

>> Not yet.

Mia Jordan

>> And so we call it digital labor. I think there's still some translation around that. I said this a moment ago, but I'm going to say it again. Salesforce and its platform, we've been in this game over a decade. We are talking about delivering AI and agents in the flow of work. That means the case and the context of the case that you're working on, that's what that agent is providing. Either that data from data cloud or it is making a recommendation based on your past, your policy, so it's governed, but also your processes. And so that's the part that I think we're still translating.

>> What's interesting, Mia, is that the labor word and workforce with agents is a huge debate, but it's very nuanced, but it's important because it's still being defined. We debate this all the time on theCUBE. Labor to me is like a financial statement on a labor cost. Workforce also implies worker. Now agents do half a task maybe, so the human does maybe half or maybe do all the tasks. So I think it's very kind of not yet clear because it may not be a worker as a person.

Mia Jordan

>> Right. But you govern it as .

>> I mean, the humans are driving AI, they're driving the car. It's like a Ferrari. Why not go fast if you want to, but if they augment that... So this whole notion of the steps and process, all that aside, because that's going to evolve, that's not in the mainstream yet. So how do you get people to cross the bridge? Because most people either have two reactions. I hate AI because it's going to either kill my job or it's going to take over the world and other things. Or, I love AI because it's so awesome and productivity's great. I don't got to do all those mundane grunt work tasks. Superpowers. Superpowers. I make more money, more productivity, check, check. So there's two camps. How do you get people together? What's the cultural secret? Because this is a change management opportunity and a problem at the same time.

Mia Jordan

>> Yeah, it's definitely organizational change management. I'd like to reflect on Salesforce and that it doesn't just build its products, but we actually use our own products, surprise. The way in which we have embedded AI into the platform, we've also embedded it into the way in which we work. And so that, I think, is where government is going to have to turn the corner where AI is not this thing that is only used by a few, but it is going to be all of the tools that they use that they will be able to see that are integrated, and where you're able to use that digital labor as a digital assistant, where it's proactively prompting you, reminding you, giving you recommendations. I think we talk about up-skilling a lot, but up-skilling isn't an event, it's the culture. And so the culture of government is really going to have to shift, I think, quite dramatically in terms of being able to use AI tools the way that they're intended.

>> And interestingly enough, on the AI, you watch all these memes and all these self-help TikToks. High performers are always learners. And if you look at AI, one of the trends we hear from management is got to build the muscle first, use it. The winners are using it. Like you mentioned, Salesforce, Amazon, we talked to the leaders there. They're mandating. The memos, come out. Use AI not to replace anything, but to build the muscle because if your always learning... First of all, more productive. What's your thoughts on that? Because I think the learning, you kind of hit on that with the whole piece of it.

Mia Jordan

>> Well, I'll speak to the culture of Salesforce. When Agentforce launched, there was a leadership meeting in San Francisco where 6 to 700 leaders across the world came in person and had to learn how to design and deploy an agent right there in the room and get up and present on it. That is really critical. It starts from the top down. Technology adoption is a top down mandate, to be quite honest. And I think if you see more of that, whether it's in government, whether or not it's in business, small or large, I think you'll see people more inclined to lean in to say, "Oh, how do I use AI in Slack to summarize a channel?" Or, "How do I use AI in my workflow to tell me, have I checked all the boxes? Have I considered every aspect of this customer's application to get this loan?" That's helpful. That's transformational, quite frankly. And more than anything, it helps you be more productive.

>> What advice would you give people? Because people want to learn the playbook. How do I transform? It's not just a memo. Obviously memos are great, top down orders, but how do people get there? What's your advice for folks to infuse AI? Because everyone's asking the question, "How can AI help my business or my situation?"

Mia Jordan

>> It is ultimately by using platforms that have AI embedded in them, not defaulting to more swivel chair applications that take you out of the flow of work, but allow you to stay in the business process that you're in. Einstein is a great example. It's a product that we've had. Einstein is in Slack where you can get summaries, you can create your PowerPoint presentations, all in a channel based on the context of a conversation that's happened in the channel. You have to start using it in order to get comfortable with it. I don't think it's as intimidating as you think.

Scott Hebner

>> Yeah. Your CEO did an interview with our colleagues, Dave Vellante and George Gilbert and Mark Benioff, and I love that he made a comment about he'll be the last CEO-

Mia Jordan

>> I was going to talk about that....

Scott Hebner

>> at Salesforce that's actually going to manage only a human workforce

Mia Jordan

>> Only human, that's right.

Scott Hebner

>> And I think that complements a lot of what I've been hearing in the private sector about targeting the labor spend, not the IT spend.

Mia Jordan

>> Not the IT spend.

Scott Hebner

>> So the question is, as you start to build these private-public partnerships, this is an opportunity for the government to think the same way.

Mia Jordan

>> Oh, for sure. One of the things that I would like, if I were queen for a day, where I would mandate all of the CXOs in the technology space, but also the CXOs on the business and program side of government is to really understand, and I'll use Salesforce and AWS as an example. We are not just partners. We're also each other's customers. I think there's something to be learned from that, that while AWS quite frankly could build a CRM, they chose to buy one, right? They're making smart investments into other technologies. Why? Because they don't have to build it. It doesn't make sense to build it. I think understanding the partnership, understanding that AWS is the infrastructure of Salesforce, how does it work together, what can I leverage between the two, is where we really need to close the gap. And I think you find that across the entire partner ecosystem, where we're all plugging into each other via APIs, via architectures, all of those things really, really matter and are evolving.

>> What's great is the tooling's becoming great, the integration is easier. The data formats are now with Iceberg open tables. A lot more of that plumbing is going to be managed away. Thank God, finally.

Mia Jordan

>> Oh, oh my goodness, yes. There's no need to DIY your AI at this point, but you do want to make investments into platforms and infrastructures that one, are constantly evolving. Two, which are, are they plugging into the things that I already own is so important for government to not keep adding more and more to its stack.

>> Well, Mia, Salesforce is lucky to have you.

Mia Jordan

>> Oh, thank you.

>> You're a brilliant leader. I wish we could be an advisor to theCUBE because-

Mia Jordan

>> Anytime....

>> we would love to go another hour on this. Final question to wrap up, what's your vision for this industry we're in now? Because public-private partnerships are happening. AI is a great opportunity.

Mia Jordan

>> Sure.

>> What do you see happening over the next year or so as this starts to roll out as multistep agents, reasoning, and inference are booming, more token requirements, bigger systems are being deployed, more horsepower, more supercomputing for the masses is coming.

Mia Jordan

>> Sure.

>> It's democratizing. We're all going to have a supercomputer in our hand even sooner than we think. What's your vision?

Mia Jordan

>> My vision is that first and foremost, I think we're going to see a more concerted effort to help government really break down the silos in their organizations to fully leverage the power and intelligence of AI. I think then we'll start seeing a real shift towards government being reactive and much more proactive. There have been some conversations that I've been in that people say, "Well, I don't know that I trust government with my data." Well, we offer our data to private institutions all the time, and we trust them with it. We get ads that's based on our preferences. I do think that there is some parity that is going to come where people will either be able to opt in or opt out to be able to benefit from that parity. And that's what I think is going to be most exciting, where it's not a displeasure to work with government agencies, but that it becomes a more better experience.

>> And also there's an in-migration of new talent coming in.

Mia Jordan

>> Oh my goodness, yes.

>> I mean, this is a huge deal. I mean the old guard lawyers, you got tech enthusiasts, we're tech native now.

Mia Jordan

>> Yes, we are.

>> A new generation is coming up on us. Quick comment on that.

Mia Jordan

>> I think the tech leadership is going to help us accelerate by leaps and bounds because in many of these tech companies, you see that the leadership in those companies all have some technology background. They are digital natives in many cases, but they are also digital leaders. And I think that is ultimately, if I may say, one of the core skills that may have been missing, and I think it's going to take us further.

>> Well, I would be so excited, Scott, if we were having conversations in a year or so or more around product-led growth services in the government.

Mia Jordan

>> Oh my goodness.

Scott Hebner

>> Yeah.

>> That's a tech conversation we have. This is kind of where it's going, it's exploding.

Mia Jordan

>> I think so.

Scott Hebner

>> It all starts with your data, right? And the ability to take all that set of capabilities the government can offer and the more they can, like you said, hundreds of CIOs, I mean, it's reputation.

>> There's no product managers in government. We need product manager... We need product-led growth. Services that product-led.

Mia Jordan

>> The understanding of how the constituent needs services across government and how to meet them where they are, how you make recommendations. Like your credit card company says, "Hey, you're eligible for a new interest rate with this credit card, transfer your balance." I think constituents want the same experience. Businesses want that same experience as well.

>> Mia, thank you for spending the time with us here in theCUBE, wish we had more time.

Mia Jordan

>> You're welcome.

>> Fabulous conversation. Transformation is upon us, a new generation. The integration of services, AI is powered by the data that's getting solved. AWS, Salesforce, all making it happen. I'm John Furrier, Scott Hebner here at theCUBE, doing our best to share that data with you. Thanks for watching.