Workday Illuminate Expands with New AI Agents for HR, Finance, and Industry

Purpose-Built Agents Transform Core Business Functions – From Performance Reviews to Financial Close – Delivering Faster, Measurable Value From AI

New Workday Flex Credits Give Customers Instant Access to AI and Platform Innovation and the Flexibility to Scale AI at Their Own Pace

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Workday Rising 2025 – Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ: WDAY), the enterprise AI platform for managing people, money, and agents, today announced new Workday Illuminate™ agents for HR, Finance, and Industry. Illuminate agents are purpose-built for work – embedded in HR and Finance, powered by Workday's unmatched data and context, and designed to deliver measurable outcomes. The new agents take on some of the most complex processes – like performance reviews, workforce planning, and financial close – helping organizations work smarter, faster, and with greater confidence.

AI spending has skyrocketed, but most companies aren't seeing real value. Deployments are too often piecemeal, siloed, and disconnected from the way work actually gets done. In fact, an MIT study found that despite billions spent on AI last year, only 5% of organizations saw a return.

Workday's new Illuminate agents change that – embedding AI directly into workflows and transforming processes to deliver real business results.

"Too many AI efforts amount to random acts of automation that never scale or deliver real value. The barrier of self-building AI on legacy systems and closed platforms is simply too high," said Gerrit Kazmaier, president, product and technology, 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."

AI Agents That Deliver Real Business Value

 Workday powers more than a trillion transactions each year across millions of workers and tens of thousands of roles – giving it unmatched insight into how people and money move through organizations.

With this depth of context in HR and Finance, Workday can pinpoint the moments that matter most and apply AI where it delivers the greatest impact. Illuminate agents transform processes like hiring, performance, planning, and financial close into more efficient, strategic outcomes. Designed to work alongside people, these agents handle repetitive, time-consuming tasks so employees can focus on higher-value work. And over time, they learn and adapt – becoming smarter, more valuable partners across the business.

New Illuminate for HR Agents Streamline Workforce and Talent Management

HR leaders are navigating the complexities of an AI-powered workplace – rethinking how people thrive in a new era of AI. They're under pressure to attract, retain, and engage talent while reducing administrative burden. New Illuminate for HR agents help create better employee experiences and free HR teams to focus on strategy by automating critical but time-consuming processes.

• Business Process Copilot Agent - Automates the implementation, configuration, and set-up of new business processes to reduce time and manual effort.
• Case Agent - Automates administrative tasks to help reduce resolution times, increase operational efficiency, and provide enhanced employee experience.
• Document Intelligence for Contingent Labor Agent - Accelerates SOW creation, tracks obligations, and promotes alignment across contracts to help drive savings and mitigate risk.
• Employee Sentiment Agent - Empowers people leaders by continuously analyzing employee feedback to provide insights and take action at scale.
• Job Architecture Agent - Automates the creation and management of job ladders to drive alignment, agility, and scalable growth.
• Performance Agent - Analyzes performance data from various enterprise applications to streamline reviews and recommend actions.

New Illuminate for Financials Agents Deliver Greater Speed and Deeper Insights

Finance teams today face the dual challenge of protecting and growing the business while adapting to a constantly changing environment. New Illuminate for Financials agents are designed to streamline reconciliation, testing, and planning, enabling leaders to shift time from manual tasks to value-added analysis and decision-making.

• Cost & Profitability Agent - Simplifies cost and profitability setup by allowing users to define allocation rules and drivers using natural language to help them gain richer insights.
• Financial Close Agent - Streamlines the financial close process with automation and real-time visibility, helping transform it into a simplified and efficient workflow.
• Financial Test Agent - Continuously tests financials to help detect fraud and enable compliance, providing continuous insight into an organization's financial health.

New Illuminate for Industry Agents Simplify Specialized Workflows

Every industry faces unique demands – whether it's managing complex student lifecycles in higher education or other specialized workflows. New Illuminate for Industry agents streamline repetitive administration tasks and give organizations more agility to better serve their communities.

• Academic Requirements Agent - Automates the creation of academic requirements for institutions, designed to significantly reduce implementation hours.
• Student Administration Agent - Automates repetitive administrative student tasks and provides intelligent assistance throughout the student lifecycle.

These new agents join Workday's growing portfolio of purpose-built agents – already in early access or generally available today – that are delivering meaningful value for customers:

• Contract Intelligence Agent reduces contract execution time by 65% and accelerates both sales cycles and supplier onboarding.
• Frontline Agent cuts time spent on managing staffing changes by up to 90%.
• Financial Audit Agent saves early access customers up to 900 hours per year by automating audit evidence collection and reporting.
• Payroll Agent automates payroll tasks and enables compliance up to 4x faster.
• Planning Agent helps early access customers reduce data exploration and analysis by 30%, equaling around 100 hours per month.

Workday Flex Credits: A Smarter, More Flexible Way to Access AI Innovation

AI innovation is built directly into the Workday platform and delivered continuously – so customers always have access to the latest Illuminate agents and platform advancements without needing additional procurement cycles.

To give organizations maximum agility in adopting these innovations, Workday is introducing Workday Flex Credits – a new, transparent subscription-based consumption model designed to make AI simple, flexible, and scalable. Flex Credits are included in every subscription, can be applied universally across agents and platform innovations, and grow as customers' needs evolve. This ensures AI is always available, always delivering value, and always ready to scale at each customer's pace. Key benefits of Workday Flex Credits include:

• Built-in access - Customers receive an initial allotment of Flex Credits as part of their Workday subscription, renewed annually.
• Scalable growth - Organizations can add more credits as their AI usage expands – with no complicated tiers or hidden fees.
• Universal flexibility - Flex Credits are fully fungible, enabling customers to apply them across Workday agents and platform innovations as business needs change.

Availability

New Illuminate agents will be available in 2026. Workday Flex Credits are available to purchase starting today.

For More Information

• Read more about Workday Flex Credits.
• Register and attend Workday Rising sessions in the digital program:
  • The Workday Platform: Transforming Work with Agentic AI [25-KEY2], Sept. 16 at 8:45am PT.
  • Accelerating CIO Transformation with an AI-First Open Platform for Work [25-KEY6], Sept. 16 at 11:00am PT.
  • Workday Illuminate™: Strategy and Vision [25-PSVIT1292], Sept. 16 at 2:00pm PT.

About Workday

Workday is the enterprise AI platform for managing people, money, and agents. Workday unifies HR and Finance on one intelligent platform with AI at the core to empower people at every level with the clarity, confidence, and insights they need to adapt quickly, make better decisions, and deliver outcomes that matter. Workday is used by more than 11,000 organizations around the world and across industries—from medium-sized businesses to more than 65% of the Fortune 500. For more information about Workday, visit workday.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding Workday's plans, beliefs, and expectations. These forward-looking statements are based only on currently available information and our current beliefs, expectations, and assumptions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. If the risks materialize, assumptions prove incorrect, or we experience unexpected changes in circumstances, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements, and therefore you should not rely on any forward-looking statements. Risks include, but are not limited to, risks described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including our most recent report on Form 10-Q or Form 10-K and other reports that we have filed and will file with the SEC from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. Workday assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release, except as required by law.

Any unreleased services, features, or functions referenced in this document, our website, or other press releases or public statements that are not currently available are subject to change at Workday's discretion and may not be delivered as planned or at all. Customers who purchase Workday services should make their purchase decisions based upon services, features, and functions that are currently available.

© 2025 Workday, Inc. All rights reserved. Workday and the Workday logo are registered trademarks of Workday, Inc. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

SOURCE Workday Inc.