There was a whole lot of hugging on stage at the recent Workday Rising event in Las Vegas. During the keynote presentation, executives often greeted each other with an embrace, and they even stressed their predilection for hugging. Whether intentional or not, this human connection matched Workday’s key message of the event: the modern world of work is fast becoming agent-enabled, but humans remain crucial to success.
“We envision a situation where humans and agents work side by side,” said Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri during his firm’s keynote presentation. “That is the role we’re orienting in now. That’s the role of the future. The goal: how do we offload repetitive tasks from teams to focus on what only humans can do – that judgement, that creativity, that leadership?”
Workday’s vision is a harmonious blend of humans and artificial intelligence (AI) agents – lots of them. During the keynote, Bhusri outlined how his company has pushed 17 agents to production. These agents cover a range of areas, including a “talent acquisition agent” that searches for qualified candidates and coordinates interview scheduling, and a “developer agent” that allows IT professionals to generate applications and workflows using natural language prompts.
Of course, convincing employees that this new catalogue of agentic colleagues isn’t coming to steal their jobs is another issue altogether. Gerrit Kazmaier, president of product and technology at Workday, recognised during the keynote that most headlines today paint a far less harmonious picture of the rise of agentic AI.
“It’s one where the AI doesn’t amplify people; it replaces them,” he said. “It’s a situation where increasingly powerful AI behaves totally unpredictably. Where even the leaders building the most advanced frontier models are warning us about the risks of their very own creations. More than a quarter of American workers worry that technology will make their jobs obsolete. That is a new record, and I say that’s a sad record.”
Jobs are going to change; there’s no question about it. Jobs are being redefined into skills and roles that are very different than what they were pre-AI. But let’s embrace that … learn AI, use the tools, embrace the opportunity Aneel Bhusri, Workday
Kazmaier and his senior colleagues hope Workday can change that record. Yes, the world of work is transforming, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Rather than jobs with strict roles and responsibilities, the workplace of the future will be fluid and agile, where professionals fulfil tasks according to their skills, not their job titles. In this workplace transformation, Workday wants HR, finance and other line-of-business professionals to embrace agents.
“Jobs are going to change; there’s no question about it,” said Bhusri, recognising that professionals understandably fear the rate of change. “Jobs are being redefined into skills and roles that are very different than what they were pre-AI. But let’s embrace that. Let’s all of us within the audience learn AI, use the tools, embrace the opportunity.”
Refounding the company
During the event, Workday executives were eager to stress that the company is building agentic capabilities into its platform, rather than bolting them on. Like other tech firms responding to the rise of agents and application programming interfaces (APIs), the company is building an increasingly open platform with strong links to pioneer models, like Anthropic Claude.
A core component of this agentic strategy is Sana. It’s been a big 12 months for the AI platform, which Workday acquired in November 2025 and has spent the past year tweaking and integrating. In Las Vegas, it announced that Sana will sit at the core of the user experience for HR, finance and line-of-business professionals who interact with Workday.
Known as Workday Home, the Sana user interface lets professionals use natural language for help with key operational activities, such as completing tasks and making decisions. Sana orchestrates Workday agents to complete these activities. Bhusri said in his keynote that this interactive approach lets users take control.
“For too long, enterprise software forced you to do the work, searching for apps, data and processes,” he said. “We’re flipping that script with Sana, the new front door to Workday. Instead of hunting through menus, instead of looking for the work you need to get done, you simply ask, like it’s a simple AI prompt.”
Workday also introduced Sana Concierge, a new HR and IT service agent that resolves employee requests, from onboarding and leave to password resets, before they become tickets. The new Sana Workday Home experience is available now. Sana Concierge is available to early adopter customers, with general availability expected in the first quarter of 2027.
For customers aiming to get a handle on Workday’s long-term roadmap, there was a lot to take in. A new Sana homepage, 17 agents, and a series of other releases and updates related to data platforms, security features and business intelligence. As Bhusri suggested in the keynote, Workday is eager to demonstrate its innovations.
“The theme of this conference is ‘Show, not tell’,” he said. “I’ve watched a lot of AI conferences recently; just a lot of slideware. The most slides you’re going to see are the ones from me, and I don’t have that many slides. You’re going to see a lot of products, and these aren’t products that are in the labs. These are mostly products that are already in production.”
As the world of work changes, Workday is transforming to develop the agentic innovations it believes its customers need. Bhusri, who co-founded the company in 2005 and stepped down as chief executive in 2024, returned as CEO in February 2026. He acknowledged that he’s overseen a hectic period of change since returning.
For too long, enterprise software forced you to do the work, searching for apps, data and processes. We’re flipping that script with Sana, the new front door to Workday Aneel Bhusri, Workday
AI sits at the heart of this transformation. Bhusri sees the rise of emerging technology as an opportunity for Workday to shine in what he called the next chapter of the technology industry. To ensure his company is ready for this narrative shift, he’s spent the past nine months building an internal startup-like culture.
“We want to transform the enterprise,” he said during his keynote. “I don’t worry about the big companies like SAP and Oracle. Maybe I should, but I don’t. I still think they’re dinosaurs. I’ll always think that. They’re not bad people, but they’re out of date. Startups – that’s where it’s at, and that’s what we’re paying attention to.”
Bhusri said it’s best to portray this transformation as a “refounding” of Workday focused on AI, with a startup-like culture that’s set up for success. When asked by Computer Weekly during a media panel session to define what this organisation might look like 12 months from now, he said, “Leaner, faster.”
This journey has already begun. As part of its reorganisation, Workday announced a global workforce reduction of approximately 2.5% in September 2026, affecting about 500 employees. Bhusri addressed the cuts in the media session.
“There were, in some parts of the development organisation, 10 layers between me and the developer getting work done, and it was the individual contributors and developers themselves who said, ‘I can’t get anything done. There are too many layers of approval’.”
Delivering for customers
The priority for Workday now is to ensure its customers understand the firm’s fresh agentic direction. In a one-to-one interview with Computer Weekly at the event, Dean Arnold, Workday’s vice-president of AI platform, said he hoped customers would recognise the firm is meeting them with agentic solutions to help them solve their key business challenges.
“Even last year, we saw the proliferation of customers building agents,” he said. “People were saying, ‘I want more agents and AI, and I want it now.’ We’re still seeing that trend going on, but tokenomics and everything else is bringing it down to a rationalised field of, ‘Okay, what’s the outcome we’re after?’”
Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri envisages humans and agents working side by side
CIOs have spent the past 12 months reflecting on agentic hyperbole. Now, with the board eager to see the benefits of agentic explorations, digital leaders are focused on tokenomics and the discipline of measuring, pricing and optimising how AI models consume tokens to create business value.
Arnold believes the hard work that he and his colleagues have put into the Workday platform in the past 12 months will pay dividends for the business and its customers. “The way we’re delivering agents is an evolution from the way we spoke about them last year,” he said. “We’re moving from a chat-style interface agent to something that’s more interwoven into a natural part of how your business operates.”
The priority is to ensure Workday clients see the benefits. “We have to help our customers be enabled on the agents that we’re producing,” said Arnold. “Our agents are focused on their business problems. They should be aware that we’re ready to help them.”
One customer already taking steps in this direction is Hezha Guimond, vice-president for HR technology and integration at Anew Health. Her organisation is using Workday’s AI Talent Suite, particularly the “recruiting agent” and “candidate experience agent”, to identify and hire staff faster. Guimond told Computer Weekly at the event that she was impressed by the firm’s announcements, particularly regarding Sana.
“I love coming to Rising because I get an opportunity to connect with like-minded people and see what Workday’s roadmap looks like, which is exciting. You speak with other customers and realise you’re doing well. It’s such a great feeling because you come here, and you’re like, ‘Oh, we’re a lot further ahead than we thought’,” she said.
“Even before coming here, I’d already contacted our Workday account manager, who’s done some work for me on the investment, and I’ve already made it very clear that I want Sana. So, Sana for sure is something we’re getting in 2027, as well as Workday Extend,” which is the IT company’s development platform that lets customers build applications inside its ecosystem.
Adam Zaller, vice-president of global HR services at Cardinal Health, is another business leader impressed with Workday’s strategic direction. His company went live with the platform in 2010 and has continued to evolve its implementation, including through agentic services. Like Guimond, he was impressed by Sana and believes the company’s AI-enabled developments complement his organisation’s ongoing digital transformation.
“It’s more affirmation that they’re on the path that I want them to be on. I’m pleased with how they’re progressing. I like the approach they’re taking. It’s not everything all at once. I wouldn’t call it a slow pace. It’s a nice, reasonable pace,” he said.
“Everything else is moving at light speed. I like the company that’s running my people data to make well-thought-out moves. And I think they’re doing that. I really like how they’re operating. Also, I’ve been pretty pleased to see the progress with Sana. I think Sana is something that’s really going to be a game-changer.”
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