USDOT Deploys AI Workforce to Remake US Transportation Systems

WASHINGTON, D.C. – December 11, 2025 – The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) is embarking on one of the federal government's most ambitious technology modernizations to date, expanding its partnership with Salesforce to deploy a digital workforce of autonomous AI agents. The initiative, centered on Salesforce’s Agentforce platform, aims to dismantle decades of technological inefficiency, enhance national transportation safety, and accelerate the distribution of billions in federal infrastructure funding.

This move signals a pivotal moment for AI adoption within the federal government, shifting from isolated pilot programs to a core strategic overhaul of a critical agency. For an organization responsible for the safe movement of people and goods across America’s vast air, road, and rail networks, the stakes are immense. The partnership aims to replace a patchwork of duplicative systems and siloed data with a unified, intelligent platform capable of proactive decision-making.

“To deliver on our mission of building a safe, efficient, and modern transportation system, we have to start with making technology our biggest asset,” said Pavan Pidugu, Chief Digital & Information Officer of USDOT, in a statement. “We needed to make a strategic shift to deliver on our mission: adding AI at the core of everything we’re doing.”

Confronting a Legacy of Neglect

The USDOT’s push towards an AI-driven future is born from necessity. For years, the department has been emblematic of the federal government’s struggle with legacy IT. Reports from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) have repeatedly highlighted the agency's reliance on outdated systems that are not only costly to maintain but also riddled with security vulnerabilities and incapable of modern data analysis.

Audits from the U.S. DOT Inspector General (OIG) have painted a stark picture of the consequences. A 2021 report, for instance, uncovered significant security weaknesses in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's (FMCSA) infrastructure, exposing millions of unencrypted personal records. These outdated systems created operational drag, forcing employees into manual, time-consuming processes and hampering the agency's ability to analyze safety data effectively, as noted in a 2015 audit of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) defect investigation office.

This technological debt created what CIO Pavan Pidugu described as an agency where technology was “forgotten about,” leading to a lack of trust from both internal and external stakeholders. The current transformation is a direct attempt to reverse this trend by unifying over 10 disparate systems onto Salesforce’s Government Cloud, using Data 360 to create a single, secure source of truth for the entire department.

The AI Agents on the Front Line

At the heart of this transformation is Agentforce, a platform that moves beyond simple automation or chatbots. It enables the creation of autonomous, intelligent AI agents designed to execute complex, multi-step tasks across the agency. These digital workers will integrate directly into USDOT’s core functions.

Key responsibilities for these new AI agents will include:

• Real-Time Safety Analysis: The agents will autonomously analyze vast, complex datasets—including weather patterns, traffic trends, and historical incident data—to generate real-time alerts. More importantly, they will recommend optimal mitigation strategies to help USDOT personnel proactively reduce transportation accidents and injuries.

• Streamlined Grant Management: With billions of dollars in federal funding flowing through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the administrative burden of grant management is immense. AI agents will be tasked with quickly reviewing applications, verifying compliance, flagging inconsistencies, and even drafting approval recommendations for human review. This is expected to unlock federal dollars for critical infrastructure projects far more rapidly.

• 24/7 Citizen Support: The public-facing side of the USDOT will also be transformed. Agents will provide around-the-clock support for citizens filing complaints or accessing services, automating routine requests and freeing human staff to focus on more complex cases. This builds on new consumer-centric portals already rolled out on the Salesforce platform for complaints against airlines and commercial motor vehicles.

According to Pidugu, the time savings from automating these manual processes are significant: “It's mind-blowing what the number of actual days of work is that we can save by doing this.”

Building Trust in Government AI

Deploying AI within a federal agency that handles sensitive transportation and citizen data requires an exceptional level of security and trust. Salesforce is addressing this by running the platform on its Government Cloud, an infrastructure built on AWS GovCloud (US) that is physically isolated from its commercial instances.

Crucially, Agentforce and its underlying data platform have achieved FedRAMP High authorization, the federal government’s most stringent security standard for cloud solutions handling sensitive, unclassified data. This certification is a critical prerequisite for any major federal IT contract and a key competitive differentiator.

Underpinning the AI's operations is the Einstein Trust Layer, a proprietary framework designed to ensure responsible AI use. This includes features like automatic data masking to protect personally identifiable information (PII), a zero-data retention policy with third-party Large Language Models (LLMs), and comprehensive audit trails for every AI interaction. This layered security approach is designed to mitigate risks like data leaks, biased outputs, and AI “hallucinations,” providing a foundation of trust for both government employees and the public.

A New Battleground for Big Tech

The USDOT deal is more than just a win for government modernization; it’s a significant strategic victory for Salesforce in the highly competitive public sector market. As federal agencies accelerate their digital transformation efforts, Big Tech firms like Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Oracle are all vying for lucrative, long-term contracts. Salesforce is positioning itself not just as a CRM provider but as the central nervous system for the modern government enterprise.

By demonstrating Agentforce's ability to tackle complex bureaucratic challenges at a national scale, Salesforce is creating a powerful blueprint for other federal, state, and local agencies. The company's focus on a unified platform that combines CRM, data, and AI into a single, secure environment offers a compelling alternative to piecemeal solutions. This holistic approach, combined with the FedRAMP High security credentials, gives it a strong footing against competitors promoting their own AI and cloud ecosystems.

“Agentforce is fueling a new era of government modernization, and USDOT offers a clear blueprint for how agents can improve productivity and accelerate citizen processes,” said Kendall Collins, CEO of Government Cloud at Salesforce. This partnership solidifies the company’s role as a key architect in the future of public service delivery, where intelligent agents work alongside human employees to create a more responsive, efficient, and data-driven government for every American.