Workday launched new AI tools for HR, finance, and IT at its Workday Rising 2026 event. The company introduced AI agents to handle routine tasks like onboarding and payroll. These tools integrate with platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams, letting employees use Workday services without switching between different business applications.
Workday has announced a series of new artificial intelligence (AI) tools for human resources (HR), finance and IT at its Workday Rising 2026 event. The announcements include AI agents designed to complete business tasks, a new Sana-powered employee experience, tools for workforce planning and financial analysis, and plans to acquire agentic identity management platform C1.ai.
The enterprise software company is also expanding its AI integrations with Anthropic and other technology providers, bringing Workday services to platforms such as Claude, Google Cloud's Gemini Enterprise, Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Teams and Slack. According to the company, the aim is to make AI tools more accessible to employees by letting them use Workday's capabilities through the platforms they already work with, without having to switch between applications.
Workday announces new AI agents for HR, finance and IT
Workday is making Sana the new home screen for its platform, giving employees a way to ask for things in everyday language and get tasks done through AI agents. For instance, Sana Concierge can handle routine HR and IT requests, such as onboarding a new employee or resetting a password, without requiring someone to raise a support ticket.
The company has also introduced Autopilot Agents for tasks across hiring, payroll, accounting and compliance. These agents can work in the background, flag issues that need attention and recommend or take action within the rules set by an organisation. The idea is to take some of the routine work off employees' plates, while leaving decisions that need human judgement to people.
Workday is also opening up its platform to businesses that want to build their own AI agents. Its Trusted Agent Platform now supports headless access, meaning agents can use Workday's capabilities without relying on its usual user interface. Workday says these agents will still be subject to the same permissions, approvals and audit trails as its own tools.
New tools for workforce planning and financial decisions
Meanwhile, Workday Decision Intelligence is now available across its portfolio. The tool helps HR and finance teams use company data to compare hiring plans, identify skills gaps and analyse financial discrepancies before making decisions. Teams can compare hiring plans, identify skills gaps and examine financial discrepancies, then send recommendations through existing approval processes.
Another tool is Work Intelligence, which will helps businesses break jobs down into individual tasks and assess where AI could automate work, assist employees or leave tasks entirely to people. It uses Workday Skills Cloud, which covers more than 75,000 skills and is used by over 3,450 customers. The tool is currently available in early access to Workday Human Capital Management customers.
Workday has also introduced Candidate Profile, which lets job seekers save their details once and reuse them when applying for jobs at companies that use Workday. This means applicants will not have to repeatedly enter the same information for every application. The company says the feature is intended to address the high rate of job application abandonment.
Workday to acquire C1.ai
Workday has also signed a definitive agreement to acquire C1.ai, an identity management platform that helps businesses control what employees and AI agents can access across their systems. The deal aims to help companies manage permissions as people and agents join, change roles or leave. The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Workday's fiscal 2027, ending January 31, 2027, subject to customary closing conditions.