McCrory is Anthropic’s head of economics. In a lengthy essay on X (the former Twitter), he laid out the data and concluded the U.S. labor market has not yet taken a visible hit from AI.

His CEO, Dario Amodei, has spent the past year repeatedly warning that a white-collar jobs crisis is coming fast and coming hard, Fortune reported. The data McCrory found tell a different story.

What Peter McCrory found when he looked at U.S. labor market data

McCrory started with the basics. The U.S. unemployment rate sat at 4.2% in June. The Federal Reserve considers that full employment. Job openings roughly matched the number of unemployed workers. Prime-age employment was near multi-decade highs.

He also ran a more specific test. McCrory looked at unemployment rates among workers whose jobs have the highest concentration of tasks that Claude is used to automate. He compared those workers to people in roles with less AI exposure. He found no relative deterioration in the more-exposed group.

“I don’t expect unemployment to be noticeably higher a year from now — at least not because of AI,” he wrote.

McCrory traces that finding to what he calls AI’s “stubbornly jagged” capability profile, a term borrowed from Wharton professor Ethan Mollick.

No occupation in the Labor Department’s taxonomy has all of its tasks handled by Claude. When McCrory looked at how people actually use Claude at work, the pattern was workers bringing it into their process to iterate and refine, not handing entire tasks over to it.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei made very different prediction on AI jobs impact

Amodei has not been quiet about where he thinks this is heading. In May 2025, he told Axios AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and push unemployment to somewhere between 10% and 20% within one to five years. He said companies and policymakers were sugarcoating the risk and needed to stop.

In January 2026, he published an essay calling AI a “general labor substitute.” He said it would push work from lower-skill roles up toward upper ones, potentially leaving workers without jobs or stuck on very low wages for good.

By June 2026, he was calling for universal basic income and wage insurance. He said significant job loss might be “an intrinsic property of the technology.”

McCrory’s data don’t prove that wrong. What they show is that the crisis scenario Amodei has described hasn’t arrived yet, at least not in the aggregate labor statistics. Both men point to the same vulnerable group: early-career workers in AI-exposed roles. The disagreement is over how bad it will get, and how fast.

Where early warning signs already appear in U.S. employment

McCrory isn’t saying everything is fine. Hiring has softened for young workers in roles with high AI exposure over the past year. Stanford researchers studying the same trend have called those workers “canaries in the coal mine.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects slower employment growth through 2034 for technical writers, data entry workers, and customer support roles. Those are exactly the categories McCrory’s analysis flags as most exposed to AI automation.

McCrory also points to a growing gap between workers who use AI as a core part of how they work and those who don’t. Power users are getting more productive. Everyone else is mostly staying the same. That shows up first in hiring and wages, before it ever reaches unemployment data.

What a delayed AI labor shock means for U.S. economy

McCrory’s data raises a specific question. If AI is lifting productivity among a subset of workers without causing broad job losses yet, where are the economic gains going?

Companies with AI-fluent workers are producing more without hiring more. That runs straight to the earnings line. But that gain is sitting inside a relatively small group of companies and workers. The broader consumer economy isn’t seeing the same lift.

Most of the productivity gain is concentrated among high-skill, high-income workers. If that stays true, the income gap between AI-fluent workers and everyone else keeps widening.

Spending by lower and middle-income households tends to be more consumption-driven, so a widening wage gap at the bottom eventually shows up in slower consumer spending growth, which is an economic problem that compounds over time.

McCrory’s essay points to one more practical implication. If the job disruption is real but still building, companies and policymakers have more time to respond than Amodei’s timeline suggests.

Retraining, education, and safety net adjustments are all easier to build before unemployment rises than after. That window is open right now. Nothing in McCrory’s data says it stays open forever.

Related: Mark Cuban has strong words on AI companies and job losses

Now, it’s going to be a humdinger.

Economists, traders, and other Fed watchers were forecasting that the Federal Open Market Committee would vote to hold the benchmark Federal Funds Rate steady. This was due to a stabilizing labor market, a huge slide in oil prices, and a refreshing dip in the June Consumer Price Index, indicating a resilient U.S. economy that could take a beat from hawkish concerns that a tightening of policy was needed ASAP.

Today, we’re looking at a coin toss, folks. Don’t be surprised if there’s a rate hike coming down the pike.

“I can make a good case for either raising rates or not,” William English, a former senior Fed economist now at Yale University, told The Wall Street Journal. “They’re just kind of stuck.”

The recent Iran war military escalation saw energy prices surge once again, along with concerns that the so-called peace accord between the United States and Iran had broken down. Prices rose at gas pumps across the country, while Treasury yields hit new highs.

And the Trump administration on July 24 released new tariffs of between 10% and 12.5% against 60 countries for alleged forced labor practices — a workaround from the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year squashing the “Liberation Day” tariffs.

As Eric Diton, president of The Wealth Alliance, told TheStreet in an email: “Given that the Iran War continues to drag on, and oil prices have spiked once again, combined with a resilient labor market and a shortage of resources due to the AI buildout, plus the tariff uncertainty, the Fed target of 2% inflation seems unattainable in the near-term. 

“The 30-year Treasury rate sits around 5.18%, the highest in nearly two decades. The markets now give a 30-40% probability that the Fed will need to hike rates at least once before year-end. I agree that the Fed may have to hike rates given this unusual set of circumstances.”

Warsh commits FOMC rate policy to “price stability“

“While monthly price fluctuations are inevitable — especially in an unsettled world — underlying inflation over longer time horizons is determined largely by monetary policy,’’ Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh said in prepared remarks while delivering the Fed’s twice-yearly Monetary Policy Report to Congress July 14-15.

The report, issued July 10, said the outlook of the future path of interest rates “is subject to considerable uncertainty.” It also described the U.S. economy as overall “expanding at a solid pace despite elevated uncertainty that owes, in part, to the conflict in the Middle East.’’  

Warsh repeatedly reminded members of both chambers that the Fed is committed to its dual Congressional mandate: Use interest rates and balance-sheet policy to keep prices stable and the labor market at full employment.

That’s tricky.

• Lower interest rates support hiring but can fuel inflation. This risks fueling further inflation, potentially leading to an inflationary spiral.
• Higher rates cool prices but can weaken the job market. This increases the cost of borrowing and further stifles economic activity.

As I reported, Warsh consistently repeated his pledge that the central bank would work on its “resolute commitment” to restore price stability.

FOMC holds interest rates steady thus far  

The rate-setting FOMC voted unanimously in June to hold its benchmark Federal Funds Rate target in a range of 3.5% to 3.75%. 

But the minutes of the June FOMC meeting showed policymakers splitting their views on inflation risk and the impact on interest rates with a rising hawkish tinge to the “dot plot.”

Shortly before the cooling June CPI came out, I reported that Fed Governor Christopher Waller issued a stark warning on inflation and its long-term impact on prices.

“No matter how you cut it, or what measure you want to use, inflation is up this year,” Waller said in a July 13 speech. “At this point, I am concerned about the elevated pace of core inflation.”   

How the Federal Funds Rate impacts you

The funds rate is the interest rate at which banks lend balances at the Federal Reserve to other banks overnight. 

A change in the funds rate triggers moves in borrowing costs ranging from credit cards to auto loans to even longer-term mortgage rates.

Policymakers cut rates by a quarter point at each of its last three meetings of 2025 to shore up the softening labor market. 

These “insurance” cuts stopped after the majority of policymakers decided the risk from higher prices was outweighing signs that the jobs market was stabilizing.

Traders shift Fed interest-rate bets

As of July 24, the widely watched CME Group FedWatch Tool shows financial markets are pricing in higher probabilities of interest-rate hikes for the final months of this year, while expecting a 64.2% probability that rates will remain steady and a 35.8% chance of a quarter-point rate hike in July.

This is a marked change from the week before, which saw a near 90% chance of July rates remaining steady.

Related: Goldman Sachs pitches eye-opening view on Fed interest-rate bets

• September shift: Traders now price in a nearly 79% cumulative chance of at least one 25 basis-point rate hike happening by or during the September FOMC meeting.
• December tightening: By the end of the year, the CME Group FedWatch Tool leans heavily toward a half-point hike, reflecting sustained inflation concerns.

Inflation risks spark markets’ interest-rate jitters

Warsh, as promised, dropped forward guidance language to markets and consumers in the June statement following his first FOMC meeting as chairman. He and other proponents of Fed reform advocate that the central bank should follow the market, not the other way around.

Forward guidance is when a central bank communicates its future economic outlook and interest-rate plans in advance, instead of surprising markets, in signaling whether rates are likely to rise, fall, or hold. 

Advocates of forward guidance say it helps businesses, investors, and consumers make informed financial decisions.

Right now, the Fed’s credibility is at risk, former New York Fed President Bill Dudley said in a Bloomberg Opinion piece. He recommended that the Fed tighten monetary policy to achieve price stability and preserve its independence, as the risks of not doing so exceed the costs of a somewhat tighter policy.

“Inflation has exceeded the central bank’s 2% objective for more than five years. If the Fed dawdles, the risk is that market participants will judge Warsh’s tough talk as “all hat, no cattle,” Dudley wrote.  

Related: Bank of America CEO warns inflation will back Fed into a corner

Almost nobody follows it, and the reason is not ignorance. Low feels terrible while you are standing in it.

When something you own falls by half, the number on your screen stops being a price. It turns into a verdict on your judgment. Most people sell right there, not because the math changed, but because the discomfort finally outran the conviction.

The metals market has been running that experiment on ordinary savers all year.

Gold and silver spent January in the kind of rally that ends arguments, then spent six months handing most of it back. Silver took the worse beating, falling by more than half from its January record. Gold gave up roughly a quarter, which still stings if you bought near the high.

That is the exact moment when confident advice usually goes quiet.

Instead, one of the loudest voices in personal finance announced he was buying. Robert Kiyosaki, author of “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” told followers on X that he added to both metals during the drop.

Why gold and silver fell so hard this year

Metals do not fall for mysterious reasons. They fall when the alternative starts paying.

Gold and silver hand you nothing while you hold them. No dividend, no coupon, no interest.

Their entire case rests on what is happening to the cash you would otherwise sit on. When inflation runs hot and real yields sink, that case is powerful. When the central bank turns hawkish and Treasury yields climb, it weakens fast.

More Gold and Silver:

• Gold’s record run has dark side few investors see
• Goldman Sachs revisits its gold price target after Fed decision
• Silver price hits new low, here is what comes next

The second version has defined 2026. Inflation is running at 3.7%, far above the Federal Reserve‘s 2% goal, according to Forbes. The Fed under Chair Kevin Warsh has held its target range at 3.50% to 3.75% and quietly moved the conversation from cuts to hikes.

Every month that story holds, the cost of owning something that pays you nothing goes up. That applies whether you own bullion, coins, or shares of SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and iShares Silver Trust (SLV) in a brokerage account.

Related: Robert Kiyosaki flips his gold stance after weeks of waiting

Silver fell twice as far as gold for a reason worth understanding before you buy either one. Silver trades as money and as an industrial input, so it absorbs the rate story and the manufacturing story at once.

When solar and electronics demand softens while rates rise, silver takes the hit from both directions. 

The war complicates all of it. U.S. strikes have continued for more than a week and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requested an additional $67 billion in war funding, reported Yahoo Finance. Conflict lifts safe-haven demand, then lifts oil, then feeds the inflation that invites tighter policy.

What Robert Kiyosaki says he bought

Kiyosaki did not announce a target this time. He announced a transaction.

“During this last ‘retracement’ or ‘crash’ I bought more gold and silver,” he wrote, according to BeInCrypto.

He credited the broader call to veteran investor Jim Rogers, arguing both metals climb sharply from here though not without “severe retracements,” reported Bitcoin.com News. Gold and silver are “going to the moon,” Kiyosaki added in his post on X.

The context makes it sharper. He spent June telling followers to wait for the chart to confirm a bottom before buying anything, as TheStreet highlighted; then bought into a decline that had not confirmed much of anything

Strip away the exclamation points and there is still a real argument underneath, and I have read enough of these posts to separate the two. The forecast is unfalsifiable. The behavior is not.

In my analysis, the useful part is the sequencing. He bought after the drawdown, not during the January melt-up when coverage was loudest and coins were most expensive. That is the reverse of what most retail buyers did this year, and it is a habit you can copy without adopting a single one of his price targets.

Whether that discipline is repeatable or simply well-timed is the open question. He has floated $35,000 gold and $200 silver before, and those numbers still read as marketing rather than modeling.

The numbers behind the metals selloff

Here is what this week actually looked like, and why the fundamentals and the price keep pointing in opposite directions.

• Gold traded at $4,131.10 an ounce on the morning of July 22, its third straight session higher, according to Yahoo Finance.
• Silver traded at $59.42 an ounce that same morning, more than $20 above its level a year earlier, according to Fortune.
• The global silver market is heading for a sixth consecutive annual deficit, projected at 46.3 million ounces, according to the Silver Institute.
• Central banks bought a net 244 tonnes of gold in the first quarter of 2026, led by Poland and Uzbekistan, according to the World Gold Council.
• Markets put roughly a one in three chance on a Fed rate hike at the July meeting, according to Forbes.

Read that list again and the tension is obvious. Supply keeps tightening and sovereign buyers keep accumulating, while the price spent six months falling.

What moved the price was policy, not scarcity. That distinction matters more to your account balance than any forecast, because policy can reverse in an afternoon and scarcity cannot.

What the Fed meeting means for your metals

The Federal Open Market Committee meets July 28 and 29. That is the next real test.

A hike, or hawkish language without one, pushes real yields up and gives both metals another reason to slide. A softer tone does the reverse, and January’s highs stop looking like a ceiling.

Neither outcome validates a $35,000 forecast. Both change what your position is worth by Christmas.

What I would take from this week is smaller and more useful than a price target. The people who got hurt in metals this year were not wrong about inflation or federal debt. They were wrong about their own tolerance for a 50% drawdown, and they found that out at the bottom instead of before they bought.

So decide now what share of your savings you can watch fall by half without touching it. Ten percent of a portfolio is a position. Half your net worth is a personality.

Kiyosaki bought this dip and got a fast bounce for it. The next one may take years to pay, and that gap between conviction and patience is where most household portfolios actually break.

Related: Robert Kiyosaki sends blunt stock market warning

Nvidia (NVDA) is not slowing down its global hunt for AI infrastructure partners. The chipmaker has spent much of 2026 signing deals across Asia, the Middle East and Europe to secure the chips, memory and power it needs to keep building AI systems.

On July 24, that hunt landed squarely on South Korea, with a cluster of new agreements announced within hours of each other.

Nvidia, SK Hynix seal $500 billion memory deal

Nvidia said on July 24 that it has locked down AI memory supply from SK Hynix, South Korea’s second most valuable company, CNBC reported. The agreement, unveiled late that evening in San Francisco, could be worth $500 billion over a number of years, and it includes large-scale data centers expected to come online in 2027.

SK Hynix affiliate SK Telecom will build a cloud business using Nvidia’s Vera Rubin systems as part of the deal.

Nvidia said it is targeting enough capacity to require 2 gigawatts of power, a figure that points to a buildout involving hundreds of thousands of graphics processing units working together.

More Nvidia:

• Bank of America sees Nvidia’s next $20 billion business
• Morgan Stanley says Nvidia stock remains top pick despite headwind
• Citi sends strong signal to Nvidia investors amid rumors

“The expansion will include a co-develop opportunity for us on the next-generation SK Hynix AI memory, and this will help us secure a stable supply of HBM memory,” Raj Mirpuri, Nvidia’s enterprise vice president, told reporters on a call. High bandwidth memory, known as HBM, sits directly next to AI chips and feeds them data fast enough to keep expensive processors from sitting idle.

SK Hynix (SKHY) has built its recent momentum on exactly that product. The company ranked first globally in HBM revenue with a 56.4% share in the first quarter of 2026. Its Nasdaq debut showed first-quarter revenue reaching 52.58 trillion won, roughly $34.5 billion, up 198% from a year earlier, with the stock now trading under the ticker SKHY, as TheStreet reported.

Samsung, Broadcom ink separate $200 billion pact

A second, unrelated deal landed the same day. Samsung Electronics said it signed a memorandum of understanding with chip designer Broadcom to expand their collaboration across memory and foundry technologies. The agreement, worth an estimated $200 billion, is meant to help support the next generation of AI infrastructure, Reuters reported.

The timing is notable given Broadcom’s growing footprint inside the AI supply chain. The company already builds custom silicon for Google’s TPU program. Adding Samsung’s memory and foundry capacity gives Broadcom another lever to pull as demand for custom AI silicon keeps climbing.

For Samsung, the deal is part of a broader push to close the gap with SK Hynix in HBM production while also rebuilding its contract manufacturing business. Samsung has also been courting AI labs directly, following a pattern in which memory makers are moving beyond simply supplying parts and into designing the systems that use them.

Naver, Hyundai deals widen Korea’s AI reach

Nvidia’s South Korea push was not limited to memory chips. The company said on July 24 it would invest $1 billion into Naver, a Korean cloud company building data centers around Nvidia’s GPUs, with the project intended to triple the facility size and provide 200 megawatts of AI computing capacity.

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang told the gathering that the SK Group partnerships alone represented more than $500 billion in combined business, though he did not detail how that figure was calculated, according to the Korea Herald.

“The SK Group and I are announcing today that our two companies will enter into business partnerships that will represent over $500 billion of business together,” Huang said during a meeting with President Lee in San Francisco.

Huang also said Nvidia would work with Hyundai Motor Group on autonomous vehicles and robotic systems, extending the day’s announcements beyond data centers and semiconductors into transportation.

The comments suggest Nvidia is treating South Korea as a testing ground for AI applications well outside its traditional chip business.

The deals mark a shift in how AI infrastructure gets financed. What used to be the province of a handful of U.S. hyperscalers now involves foreign governments and industrial conglomerates writing checks at a similar scale.

What the deals mean for chip investors

The memory market that underpins all of these deals remains a three-way race.

Samsung Electronics leads with a 38% share of the broader DRAM market, followed by SK Hynix at 29% and Micron at 22%, according to Counterpoint Research data cited in a recent fund manager interview, as TheStreet reported.

Every one of those three now has direct exposure to Nvidia’s expanding supply chain.

Analysts have been warning for months that memory demand is outpacing supply, and the announcements on July 24 only add to that pressure. BofA has pointed to the same dynamic as a reason memory prices could climb across DRAM, NAND and HBM products alike.

For U.S. investors without direct access to Samsung shares, SK Hynix’s new Nasdaq listing and Micron remain the two clearest ways to track the trade. Both are now tied more tightly than ever to decisions being made inside Nvidia’s San Francisco headquarters.

Related: Nvidia stock is doing something it hasn’t done in years

Typically, the mindset is to put money in and leave it there until age 59½, or expect a tax bill and a penalty for reaching in early. However, that belief is only half right, and each half costs retirement savers something. 

Some Americans leave a Roth untouched during an emergency because they assume it is off limits. Others, once they learn it is not, start treating the account as reachable without considering what the withdrawal takes with it.

In a video on his YouTube channel, Mark J. Kohler, a CPA, attorney, and bestselling author, ran through the beliefs he says most savers hold about the Roth and showed where each one falls short.

“They think it’s locked up until they’re 59 and a half,” Kohler said, naming the misconception he says keeps savers from understanding what the account can actually do.

What the IRS rule on Roth IRA contributions actually says

Under the ordering rules in Section 408A(d)(4) of the tax code, explained in IRS Publication 590-B, money leaving a Roth IRA comes out in a fixed order: contributions first, then any converted amounts, then earnings. That order is what decides the tax treatment.

Contributions occupy the first layer because they were already taxed on the way in. They can be withdrawn at any age, without income tax and without the 10% early distribution penalty, and no qualifying reason is required. There is no hardship test and no exception to claim.

The layers underneath behave differently, and the logic makes sense once everything is properly separated. 

Each Roth conversion carries its own separate five-year clock, and pulling converted money inside that window can trigger the 10% penalty for a saver under 59½. Earnings are the layer to be especially mindful of. They come out tax-free only once the saver is 59½ or older and the account has been open at least five years.

As for the contribution layer, Kohler puts it in plainer terms.

“But if you follow the rules, the contributions can come out penalty-free and tax-free if you need them earlier in an emergency, maybe to go to college, to buy a new home or something if necessary,” Kohler said.

More on retirement accounts:

• Charles Schwab, Fidelity alert workers to forced 401(k) rule
• Dave Ramsey warns Americans on 401(k)s, IRAs (he’s not wrong)
• Congress research arm warns Americans on 401(k), IRA penalty

While he wants people to know this exists, Kohler does not present that access as a strategy. In the same breath, he tells savers what he would rather they do with it.

“Now, yes, we want to let that money ride as long as possible,” Kohler said. “You’ve got to know that that option to get those contributions out if necessary is always there.”

Both sides of this matter for Americans building their retirement nest egg. The access is real, and for a saver facing a genuine emergency it can be the cheapest money available. What the rule does not do is make the withdrawal entirely free, even if it feels that way.

What retirement savers give up by draining a Roth early

The first cost is structural and has nothing to do with markets or returns. Roth contribution room is annual, and it does not regenerate. The 2026 IRA limit is $7,500, with an additional $1,100 available to savers 50 and older, according to IRS Notice 2025-67. A saver who takes a contribution out cannot simply put it back the following month. The only restoration path is a 60-day rollover, and the IRS permits one IRA-to-IRA rollover per 12-month period across every IRA a taxpayer owns. Past that window, replacing the money counts as a fresh contribution against that year’s cap. The room is gone for good, and so is everything it would have earned.

The second cost is the compounding, which is what Kohler emphasizes can leave thousands or more on the table.

“Do not underestimate the Roth because of the annual contribution limit and that it feels small,” Kohler said. “The wealthy understand that tax-free compounding growth over time can become massive.”

He ran the math to show how impactful seemingly small contributions, or in this case withdrawals, can be. Starting with $7,500 and adding $8,000 every January for 20 years at a 15% annual rate of return, he said, produces more than a million dollars tax-free. That assumed return runs well above long-run stock market averages, and a more conservative rate lands the figure considerably lower, but the argument survives either way. The contributions pulled out early are the ones that had the most time left to work.

“I don’t mean you treat your Roth IRA like a checking account,” Kohler said. “I just mean later in life when you follow the rules, this account can become a source of tax-free income. And just like an ATM, you can go get that tax-free money anytime you want. And it doesn’t even show up on your tax return.”

That last detail is what separates the account from everything else in a retirement income mix, since withdrawals from a traditional account, a rental property, or a small business all lift the figure a retiree reports.

“That Roth IRA can give you income without adding to your taxable income,” Kohler said. “It can even affect your Medicare premiums and how you’re going to cover your health insurance costs. It can affect how much of your social security is taxed.”

None of that argues for leaving a Roth alone when the alternative is worse. A saver weighing a contribution withdrawal against high-interest debt or a missed housing payment is running a different calculation, and the access exists for exactly that reason. The distinction Kohler draws is between leveraging the rule and defaulting to it.

“And you’re not going to drain it early because you’re building an account that will give you the freedom and wealth that millions of Americans are now older and can only dream about,” Kohler said.

Key takeaways on Roth IRA contribution withdrawals

• Roth contributions can come out at any age: Under the IRS ordering rules, contributions leave a Roth IRA first, without income tax and without the 10% early distribution penalty. No qualifying reason or hardship test is required.
• Earnings are the part that is actually locked: Money the account has generated comes out tax-free only once the saver is 59½ and the account has been open five years. Each Roth conversion also carries its own separate five-year clock.
• The contribution room does not come back: The 2026 IRA limit is $7,500, plus $1,100 for savers 50 and older, per IRS Notice 2025-67. A withdrawn contribution can only be restored through a 60-day rollover, and the IRS allows one IRA-to-IRA rollover per 12 months.
• Kohler’s case rests on compounding, not the annual limit: Kohler said savers underestimate the Roth because the yearly contribution feels small, and that tax-free compounding over time is what makes the account powerful. His on-camera example assumed a 15% annual rate of return.
• The access exists for a reason: Kohler said savers should let the money ride as long as possible while knowing the option to pull contributions is always there. For someone facing a genuine emergency, the withdrawal can still be the right call.

Related: Americans get blunt message on early retirement

The rollout became one of the most cited failures in modern government technology, tied to patient deaths and years of paused deployments.

The project started as a $10 billion contract with Cerner in 2018 and has since pushed toward lifecycle costs as high as $50 billion, according to the Washington Examiner.

Investigators linked the system to more than 150 cases of patient harm at just five medical centers, according to Fierce Healthcare. That history shadows every technology contract the VA signs today.

The Cerner program was not the VA’s first attempt to fix its records systems. It was the fourth try in two decades after three earlier modernization projects collapsed, and VA health care has remained on the Government Accountability Office’s high risk list since 2015.

This week, the VA signed another major technology deal, but chose a different vendor and a different approach. Salesforce (CRM) announced Friday, July 24, that it won a contract worth up to $1.6 billion to expand its role across the VA, according to a press release.

Related: Salesforce receives double blow over an AI product

The Agentic Enterprise License Agreement runs for one year with two optional one-year renewals, giving it a three-year ceiling if the VA exercises both extensions.

Unlike the Cerner overhaul, Salesforce is not building a new system from scratch. It is expanding tools the agency has used for more than a decade, building on a relationship that predates this contract by years.

The VA built on a system it already trusted

Salesforce’s Slack platform already runs across more than 150 VA medical and outpatient centers.

The company also operates the VA’s Veterans Crisis Line, the VA Health Connect contact center and the SQUARES eligibility system, a footprint that predates this contract.

Kendall Collins, who leads Salesforce’s government and defense unit, said the goal is to reduce the time employees spend navigating disconnected systems, according to a press release.

That distinction matters because rip and replace projects like Cerner failed partly because clinicians had to learn entirely new workflows overnight.

The 28-day promise is the real test

The VA wants to cut average appointment scheduling time from 28 days to minutes once the system fully deploys, covering more than 40,000 provider services nationwide under its Unified Patient Scheduling initiative.

That is an ambitious claim for an agency whose last major technology bet struggled for years.

A March 2025 Government Accountability Office review found that only 13% of VA staff believed the Cerner system made the agency more efficient, while 58% said it increased patient safety risk, according to Federal News Network.

Salesforce’s contract avoids locking the VA into that kind of fixed commitment. The one-year renewal terms give the agency a formal exit if milestones slip, rather than a decadelong obligation like the one that trapped Cerner.

The scheduling metric also gives investors something Cerner never offered, a single visible number they can track.

Cerner’s quality problems showed up in incident reports and inspector general findings that took months to surface. A missed scheduling target will be obvious almost immediately.

More Salesforce:

• Salesforce receives double blow over an AI product
• Salesforce bets another $1 billion despite AI spending cratering its stock
• Workers just sent AI companies an ultimatum

Wall Street is pricing in more than one contract

CRM shares rose 1.3% Friday morning on the news. The structure of the deal matters, too, since Agentic Enterprise License Agreements tie a portion of revenue to actual agent usage rather than a flat seat count, giving Salesforce room to grow the contract’s value if VA adoption expands.

The same week, the Air Force expanded its use of Salesforce’s Missionforce platform to manage a $13.5 billion vehicle fleet, and ServiceNow shares climbed as federal AI deal flow lifted enterprise software stocks broadly, according to 24/7 Wall St.

Oracle also picked up a separate enterprise software agreement with the Defense Department worth close to $7 billion, The Register reported.

Analysts remain split on Salesforce’s broader AI strategy. Guggenheim upgraded the stock to Buy with a $228 price target earlier this month, while KeyBanc downgraded it to Sector Weight over softer customer checks, according to StocksToTrade.

That split matters because Salesforce is not the only software vendor chasing federal agentic AI budgets.

Oracle, ServiceNow, and Palantir are all pursuing similar agency contracts, and each new award now doubles as evidence in the argument over whether AI spending on enterprise software is durable or overhyped.

A shift away from monolithic government contracts

The Cerner failure became Washington’s cautionary tale for large technology overhauls, and it changed how agencies structure new deals. Vendors already embedded in daily workflows now have an advantage over companies pitching a complete replacement.

That shift explains why the VA, the Air Force and the Pentagon are all signing renewable agreements with incumbents instead of one massive fixed contract.

Whether Salesforce’s approach actually cuts scheduling times, or joins Cerner as a cautionary story of its own, depends on execution the market cannot see yet.

Investors watching Salesforce’s federal expansion should track whether the VA exercises both renewal years, since that decision will say more about the deal’s success than Friday’s stock move ever could.

Related: Salesforce bets another $1 billion despite AI spending cratering its stock