Box's AI agents set to help US government agencies
(2025/08/13)
- Reference: 1755090014
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/08/13/boxs_ai_agent_us_gov/
- Source link:
Not to be left behind in the flurry of government-wide AI purchasing deals, Box has signed a deal with the feds that'll inject some agentic AI into federal government systems.
Box, the venerable cloud storage platform-cum-data management suite, announced its deal with the US General Services Administration (GSA) on Wednesday. The deal will see Box AI, the company's self-described "intelligent content management platform," made available to government agencies. As another deal made through the GSA's new [1]OneGov purchasing strategy, the agreement means standardized, discounted terms that eliminate the need for government agencies to negotiate on their own.
For those who haven't been following Box for the past decade or so, yes - it's still around, though not in the same incarnation it once was.
[2]
Having lost to Google in the cloud storage wars of a decade ago, Box has since [3]pivoted to offering companies the ability to use AI to better understand their data. The company most [4]recently introduced a new fleet of AI agents to its larger Box AI data analytics suite, and is confident those AI agents will find a ready home in the federal government.
[5]
[6]
According to Box's statement on the release, its platform will serve government users not only by "generating complex insights across files/folders" and "extracting metadata at a massive scale," but also by "automating repeatable tasks with easy to build AI agents."
What's more, Box hasn't developed its own AI models and has instead chosen to work with AI companies to embed various models in Box AI from companies including [7]OpenAI , Google and [8]Anthropic . AI models from IBM, Amazon, Meta and xAI are also available, Box noted.
[9]
All said, Box AI will ostensibly help agencies with "AI powered workflows, compliant content management, e-signature, forms, document generation" and collaboration features, the company said.
[10]AWS offers $1B credit to slash Uncle Sam's cloud bills - and lock in as a provider until at least 2028
[11]Fed cloud contracts up 2x this year after red tape slashing
[12]Microsoft researchers bullish on AI security agent even though it let 74% of malware slip through
[13]AI agents? Yes, let's automate all sorts of things that don't actually need it
Like most of the other OneGov deals made by the GSA of late, this one has an expiration date, too: The Box discounts (unspecified in the press release) will expire in August 2026.
The addition of agentic AI to government systems via Box isn't the first time the feds have sought solutions from the latest AI craze in the form of glorified workflow bots. The Pentagon has [14]signed a deal to bring agentic AI to its planning and operations processes, while the IRS hopes to [15]replace fired enforcement workers with AI as well.
While some government departments may welcome the chance to automate some of their work, that's not to say it's necessarily a good idea.
According to recent [16]research published by Gartner, the private sector is likely to cancel more than 40 percent of its agentic AI projects by 2027 due in part to the fact that they aren't very good at their jobs - the best-performing AI agent only performed 30 percent of office-related tasks correctly, and most had less than a 10 percent successful completion rate.
[17]
In other words, government agencies considering deploying agentic AI, be they within Box's new discounted software or somewhere else, had better [18]plan to spend time being sure their agents aren't running amok. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/gsa-unveils-onegov-strategy-04292025
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aJy2ldJAbqbT_UXxyh6LjgAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.box.com/overview
[4] https://blog.box.com/content-ai-virtual-summit-may-2025
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aJy2ldJAbqbT_UXxyh6LjgAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aJy2ldJAbqbT_UXxyh6LjgAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/06/google_openai_anthropic_us_gov_ai_deal/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/12/gsa_inks_another_1dollar_onegov_deal/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aJy2ldJAbqbT_UXxyh6LjgAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/07/gsa_signs_1b_deal_with_aws/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/11/fedramp_government_cloud_software_approvals/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/06/microsofts_ai_agent_malware_detecting/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/27/ai_agents_automate_argument/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/05/dod_taps_scale_to_bring/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/08/irs_ai_plans/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/29/ai_agents_fail_a_lot/
[17] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aJy2ldJAbqbT_UXxyh6LjgAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/16/if_you_want_a_picture/
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Box, the venerable cloud storage platform-cum-data management suite, announced its deal with the US General Services Administration (GSA) on Wednesday. The deal will see Box AI, the company's self-described "intelligent content management platform," made available to government agencies. As another deal made through the GSA's new [1]OneGov purchasing strategy, the agreement means standardized, discounted terms that eliminate the need for government agencies to negotiate on their own.
For those who haven't been following Box for the past decade or so, yes - it's still around, though not in the same incarnation it once was.
[2]
Having lost to Google in the cloud storage wars of a decade ago, Box has since [3]pivoted to offering companies the ability to use AI to better understand their data. The company most [4]recently introduced a new fleet of AI agents to its larger Box AI data analytics suite, and is confident those AI agents will find a ready home in the federal government.
[5]
[6]
According to Box's statement on the release, its platform will serve government users not only by "generating complex insights across files/folders" and "extracting metadata at a massive scale," but also by "automating repeatable tasks with easy to build AI agents."
What's more, Box hasn't developed its own AI models and has instead chosen to work with AI companies to embed various models in Box AI from companies including [7]OpenAI , Google and [8]Anthropic . AI models from IBM, Amazon, Meta and xAI are also available, Box noted.
[9]
All said, Box AI will ostensibly help agencies with "AI powered workflows, compliant content management, e-signature, forms, document generation" and collaboration features, the company said.
[10]AWS offers $1B credit to slash Uncle Sam's cloud bills - and lock in as a provider until at least 2028
[11]Fed cloud contracts up 2x this year after red tape slashing
[12]Microsoft researchers bullish on AI security agent even though it let 74% of malware slip through
[13]AI agents? Yes, let's automate all sorts of things that don't actually need it
Like most of the other OneGov deals made by the GSA of late, this one has an expiration date, too: The Box discounts (unspecified in the press release) will expire in August 2026.
The addition of agentic AI to government systems via Box isn't the first time the feds have sought solutions from the latest AI craze in the form of glorified workflow bots. The Pentagon has [14]signed a deal to bring agentic AI to its planning and operations processes, while the IRS hopes to [15]replace fired enforcement workers with AI as well.
While some government departments may welcome the chance to automate some of their work, that's not to say it's necessarily a good idea.
According to recent [16]research published by Gartner, the private sector is likely to cancel more than 40 percent of its agentic AI projects by 2027 due in part to the fact that they aren't very good at their jobs - the best-performing AI agent only performed 30 percent of office-related tasks correctly, and most had less than a 10 percent successful completion rate.
[17]
In other words, government agencies considering deploying agentic AI, be they within Box's new discounted software or somewhere else, had better [18]plan to spend time being sure their agents aren't running amok. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/gsa-unveils-onegov-strategy-04292025
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aJy2ldJAbqbT_UXxyh6LjgAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.box.com/overview
[4] https://blog.box.com/content-ai-virtual-summit-may-2025
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aJy2ldJAbqbT_UXxyh6LjgAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aJy2ldJAbqbT_UXxyh6LjgAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/06/google_openai_anthropic_us_gov_ai_deal/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/12/gsa_inks_another_1dollar_onegov_deal/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aJy2ldJAbqbT_UXxyh6LjgAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/07/gsa_signs_1b_deal_with_aws/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/11/fedramp_government_cloud_software_approvals/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/06/microsofts_ai_agent_malware_detecting/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/27/ai_agents_automate_argument/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/05/dod_taps_scale_to_bring/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/08/irs_ai_plans/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/29/ai_agents_fail_a_lot/
[17] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aJy2ldJAbqbT_UXxyh6LjgAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/16/if_you_want_a_picture/
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/