SAN FRANCISCO — Workday Inc. on Tuesday unleashed more artificial intelligence (AI) agents, a developer platform, and a data cloud product to ease human resource tasks.
Separately, Workday signed a definitive agreement to acquire Sana, a leading AI company building the next generation of enterprise knowledge tools, and it announced a partnership with Microsoft that lets customers build AI agents using Microsoft Azure AI Foundry and Copilot Studio to register and manage them within the Workday Agent System of Record.
Against the backdrop of its annual conference here, the company announced the launch of new Workday Illuminate agents. Specifically designed for HR, finance, and industry applications, they are designed to tackle some of the most challenging and time-intensive organizational processes such as performance reviews, workforce planning, and financial close procedures, Workday executives said.
“Too many AI efforts amount to random acts of automation that never scale or deliver real value,” said Gerrit Kazmaier, president of product and technology at Workday. “Workday Illuminate is different. With purpose-built AI agents and a single, open enterprise platform, we’re redefining ERP for the AI era — transforming it from a passive system of record into a system of action that drives real outcomes.”
Workday also unveiled Workday Build, a comprehensive developer platform designed to let customers and partners create, share, and scale AI-powered solutions directly within the Workday ecosystem.
The new platform provides access to Workday’s applications, data, and AI capabilities, allowing customers, partners, and developers to customize the platform, extend its functionality, and accelerate the delivery of AI innovations while maintaining Workday’s established security and trust standards.
A key component of Workday Build is the introduction of the Workday Flowise Agent Builder, a low-code development tool that simplifies the process of building, deploying, and managing custom AI agents within the Workday environment. The tool enables customers to harness existing data and contextual information within Workday to develop business-specific AI agents with enhanced speed, flexibility, and reliability.
“The era of one-size-fits-all enterprise software is over,” Peter Bailis, chief technology officer at Workday, said in a press briefing. “With Workday Build, customers go from consuming AI to creating with it, giving them the power to build intelligent solutions directly on their most trusted people and financial data. This transforms how they do work, within the security of the Workday platform they already depend on.”
Additionally, Workday introduced Workday Data Cloud, a new data infrastructure layer designed to help organizations maximize the strategic value of their HR and finance data by seamlessly connecting it to existing analytics platforms and operational systems.
The platform provides customers with secure, real-time access to comprehensive workforce and financial insights, allowing faster conversion of data into actionable business decisions. The Data Cloud represents a significant shift toward more immediate and accessible data utilization for strategic planning.
In conjunction with the Data Cloud launch, Workday announced strategic partnerships with Snowflake Inc., Databricks Inc., and Salesforce Inc. These collaborations provide customers with direct, zero-copy access to their core HR and finance data within their existing platforms, while also enabling the integration of customer and business data into Workday using the same streamlined approach, according to Workday.
