Workday unveils next-gen of agents for HR and finance transformation 

Workday, Inc. the AI platform for managing people, money, and agents, today announced a new wave of Illuminate Agents designed to significantly speed up the hiring processes, improve frontline worker experiences, streamline complex financial processes, and empower employees to find information quickly and easily. 

Unveiled at Workday Elevate Singapore, the new agents leverage Workday’s foundation  of responsible AI and are purpose-built to supercharge employee productivity – creating a future  where agentic AI fundamentally transforms how work gets done. 

“The key to unlocking real business value with AI is to actively reshape the very core of how  businesses operate,” said Gerrit Kazmaier, president, product and technology, Workday. 

“Workday is helping our 11,000+ customers in that transformation by leveraging our deep HR  and finance expertise to deliver agents that provide measurable business value and empower  them to thrive in the future of work.” 

“Data is a powerful catalyst for growth when it can be transformed into actionable intelligence,”  said Shane Luke, vice president, Workday Illuminate. “Our agents leverage the world’s most  powerful HR and finance dataset to turn insights into impact – boosting productivity, enhancing  compliance, and accelerating decision-making at every level.” 

New Illuminate Agents announced include: 

● Contingent Sourcing Agent: Accelerates temporary hiring by identifying talent open to  contingent roles, streamlining screening, and enhancing applicant quality. 

● Contract Intelligence Agent: Enhances legal and business decision-making by rapidly  reviewing contracts to identify risks, track key dates and fees, and provide ongoing  analysis. 

● Contract Negotiation Agent: Expedites negotiations by drafting applicable contract  language, detecting risks, and recommending revisions. 

● Document Driven Accounting Agent: Sets a new benchmark for accounting  productivity by extracting data from documents to automate billing, invoicing, and  accounting entries. 

● Frontline Agent: Saves frontline workers and managers time by enabling text-based  absence reporting, quickly identifying qualified replacements, and helping to ensure  compliance and accurate shift pay. 

● Self-Service Agent: Powers employee and manager self-service by providing instant  answers to inquiries, assisting with complex tasks, and executing everyday actions on  employees’ behalf. 

● Supplier Contracts Agent: Proactively reviews supplier contracts to identify obligations  and opportunities, aligning procurement processes with contract terms.

“Workday’s cutting-edge contract AI and automated workflow technology has already delivered  tangible benefits, saving us thousands of hours and millions of dollars across multiple critical  corporate initiatives,” said Shelle Elzer, legal operations manager, NetApp. “We’re genuinely  excited to see Workday expand on this agent innovation and are confident these advancements  will empower our teams with even greater efficiencies that ultimately free them to focus on more  meaningful work.” 

“Workday continues to effectively target critical business outcomes in productivity, compliance,  and insights with agentic AI. This is one more significant step in establishing AI agents as  practical and impactful tools for business transformation,” said Mickey North Rizza, group vice president, IDC Enterprise Software.

“Customers need measurable business value and clear  time-to-payback and Workday’s innovations with agentic AI will resonate strongly with  organizations looking to truly transform the future of work and fully take advantage of the power  of AI.” 

Workday Illuminate: AI to Transform How People Work 

These new agents join Workday’s growing portfolio of agentic AI solutions, including the  previously-announced Business Process Optimize Agent, Financial Audit Agent, Payroll Agent,  Recruiting Agent, and Talent Mobility Agent. Customers will be able to easily deploy and  manage these agents through the Workday Agent System of Record. This central command  center will enable IT and business leaders to maximize the impact of their agents and ensure  they support their employees to drive measurable outcomes. 

Illuminate is the next generation of Workday AI. Built on the world’s largest and cleanest HR and  financial dataset – fueled by more than 1 trillion transactions a year – Illuminate understands the  business context around the data to transform business operations by elevating humans,  accelerating finance, and managing an organization’s entire fleet of AI agents. From skills, to  performance, goals, cost and ROI metrics, organizational models, and individual identities,  Illuminate has deep contextual understanding of how work gets done. 

About Workday 

Workday is the AI platform for managing people, money, and agents. The Workday platform is  built with AI at the core to help customers elevate people, supercharge work, and move their  business forever forward. Workday is used by more than 11,000 organizations around the world  and across industries – from medium-sized businesses to more than 60% of the Fortune 500.  For more information about Workday, visit workday.com. 

(Adapted from press release)