Workday unveils AI agents to boost HR & finance productivity

Workday has introduced a new set of Illuminate Agents aimed at enhancing HR and finance operations through artificial intelligence.

The newly announced AI agents are designed to accelerate hiring, improve the experiences of frontline workers, streamline complicated financial tasks, and enable employees to access information more quickly. Built on the company's responsible AI framework, the agents are intended to increase employee productivity in a changing workplace landscape.

Gerrit Kazmaier, President, Product and Technology at Workday, said, "The key to unlocking real business value with AI is to actively reshape the very core of how businesses operate. 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."

Shane Luke, Vice President of Workday Illuminate, commented on the importance of data as a resource for organisations. "Data is a powerful catalyst for growth when it can be transformed into actionable intelligence. 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."

The new agents introduced include the Contingent Sourcing Agent, which focuses on expediting the hiring of temporary workers by identifying candidates open to contingent roles, refining the screening process, and improving applicant quality. The Contract Intelligence Agent assists in legal and business judgement by reviewing contracts to detect risks, track essential dates and fees, and offering continual analysis.

The Contract Negotiation Agent is aimed at facilitating contract discussions by drafting suitable contract language, identifying risk factors and recommending revisions. The Document Driven Accounting Agent automates processes by extracting data from documents to handle billing, invoicing, and accounting inputs, setting new standards for productivity in financial departments.

Frontline employees are supported by the Frontline Agent, which enables text-based absence notifications, helps to identify suitable replacements swiftly, and ensures compliance alongside proper shift payments. A Self-Service Agent is provided to help employees and managers by supplying immediate responses to questions, aiding with more complex activities, and executing daily tasks for users.

The Supplier Contracts Agent continually evaluates supplier agreements to highlight obligations and opportunities, making procurement processes more aligned with existing contracts.

Shedding light on practical gains observed from similar technologies, Shelle Elzer, Legal Operations Manager at NetApp, said, "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. 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."

Analyst commentary was also provided by IDC Enterprise Software's Group Vice-President, Mickey North Rizza. "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. Customers need measurable business value and clear time-to-payback and Workday's innovations with agentic AI will resonate strongly with organisations looking to truly transform the future of work and fully take advantage of the power of AI."

The new AI agents expand Workday's existing portfolio, which already features agents such as the Business Process Optimize Agent, Financial Audit Agent, Payroll Agent, Recruiting Agent, and Talent Mobility Agent. All of these can be managed from the Workday Agent System of Record, a centralised management hub intended to maximise agent effectiveness for IT and business leaders and support employees in driving measurable results.

Illuminate, described as the latest evolution of Workday's AI capabilities, is built on a substantial HR and financial dataset generated by over 1 trillion transactions annually. The system is designed to understand business context involving skills, performance, objectives, costs, ROI measurements, organisational models, and individual user identities, and applies this context to support business operations through agentic AI.

Availability varies across the new agents. The Contract Intelligence Agent and Contract Negotiation Agent are now generally available. The Self-Service Agent is expected to be generally available by the end of 2025. Early adopter access to the Contingent Sourcing Agent, Document Driven Accounting Agent, Frontline Agent, and Supplier Contracts Agent is planned by the end of 2025, with general availability scheduled for early 2026.