The Army on Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, will shutter 150,000 email licenses purchased two years ago through Google after only about 16% were in use at any given time. (U.S. Army)
The Army on Friday will shutter 150,000 email licenses purchased two years ago through Google after only about 16% were in use at any given time, according to the service’s top signal officer.
The move requires roughly 24,000 soldiers to follow instructions to move from their Army Google Workspace account to an Army 365 account with Microsoft, said Lt. Gen. Jeth Rey, deputy chief of staff of the Army G-6, who advises service officials on computer networks and communications.
“We did, subsequently, an Army audit to ensure that we were getting the bang for our buck, the return on investment, and in that space, we saw utilization is more important than anything else,” Rey said Thursday. “Utilization was very, very low, so the return on investment wasn’t there.”
The Google accounts were purchased as a cost-saving measure but several factors that went into the decision have changed in the three years since the decision was made, he said. He declined to offer any specific amounts of savings between the programs.
The announcement comes as the federal government is tasked by President Donald Trump and the new Department of Government Efficiency to reduce spending. It has been a key piece of Trump’s agenda since taking office and has been embraced by new leaders installed at the Defense Department.
Soldiers in basic training were issued the Google accounts to receive important documents, information on duty assignments and other details that are no longer sent to troops through email. Instead, the information is housed in the Army’s Integrated Personnel and Pay System, which is available through a secure website.
Once soldiers arrived at their unit, they could transition to an Army 365 account as needed because the Google and Microsoft programs do not interact with each other, Rey said.
Leonel Garciga, the Army’s chief information officer, said this transition is just one example of how the service launches pilot programs to evaluate different options.
“They either become part of our core architecture moving forward or they have a graceful sunset,” he said.
For soldiers using Army Google Workspace, their email address will change in the transition, and they will need to forward any messages they do not want to lose immediate access to. However, the Army is working with Google, which has other contracts with the service, on retrieving any retaining the data, Rey said.
