Workday Launches Autopilot Agents That Get Real Work Done Across HR, Finance, and IT

News Release Issued: Oct 13, 2026 (9:00am EDT)

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Workday Launches Autopilot Agents That Get Real Work Done Across HR, Finance,
and IT

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New Agents Continuously Handle Routine HR, Finance, and IT Processes in the
Background, Allowing Employees to Offload Repetitive Workflows While Remaining
Firmly in Control
Workday Agents Follow Each Company's Policies, Permissions, and Approvals So
They Can be Trusted to Act, Not Just Answer Questions
LAS VEGAS, Oct. 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Workday Rising 2026 - Workday,
Inc. (NASDAQ: WDAY), the trusted agentic platform for HR, finance, and IT,
today announced new AI agents that work as autopilots across hiring, payroll,
accounting, and compliance. For HR, finance, and IT teams, this means less
time chasing work and more time on the decisions only people can make.

A recruiter managing 25 open jobs no longer needs to check each one to see
which are running short on candidates. Workday's Talent Acquisition Agent is
always checking the queue, finding qualified candidates as soon as the job is
posted, and providing information about those candidates and their
qualifications for the posted job to recruiters. Early adopter customers can
use this autopilot capability starting today.
Workday is bringing the same autopilot capabilities to the Payroll,
Accounting, and Deployment Agents customers already use. The Payroll
Agent will spot missing pay data before payroll runs. The Accounting
Agent will continuously test financial information, instead of waiting for a
scramble when auditors ask for records, and the Deployment Agent will flag
new capabilities that can improve customer outcomes based on how a company has
Workday set up.
Lawful by Design
Letting an agent work in the background only makes sense if a company can
trust it. This matters most in the work that cannot afford to be wrong. In
payroll, almost right means someone gets paid incorrectly. In the monthly
close when the books are finalized, it means the numbers don't add up.
Workday agents are lawful by design. They inherit each company's policies,
permissions, and approval rules from day one. Workday agents anticipate what
needs attention, advise on the next step with the company's policy already
applied, and act within each customer's controls.
Workday's agents will be orchestrated by Sana, Workday's agentic experience
and orchestration engine. Sana can pick up what needs to be done, coordinate
the right Workday agents behind the scenes, and bring people in when review,
approval, or judgment is needed. Employees don't need to know which agent
handles what, or even ask where to start. Sana can keep the work moving and
shows people where they need to act.
Customers Decide What Agents Do on Their Own
Customers choose which tasks run automatically and how far each agent can go.
They decide which actions an agent can take on its own, which need review, and
when a person makes the final call. Every action an agent takes is logged, so
customers can see what it did, what information it used, and who approved it.
They can also set how often agents run, so they can manage both activity and
cost as agent use grows.
"Probabilistic AI is great at guessing, but in payroll and finance, a good
guess isn't good enough," said Gerrit Kazmaier, president, product and
technology, Workday. "Our agents can work in the background because they
follow the same policies, permissions, and approvals that already run the
business. That's what lets them go beyond making suggestions to anticipate,
advise, and act autonomously."
"Until now, AI has worked like a copilot - helpful, but only when you ask it
something. That's not enough anymore," said Joel Hellermark, chief AI officer,
Workday. "Our agents work like autopilots - they get the work done on their
own, and bring people in exactly when their judgment makes the difference."
Talent Acquisition Agent Starts Working Before a Role is Opened
The Talent Acquisition Agent keeps watch across open roles, flags those that
are moving forward and those that may be at risk of missing their fill date,
and starts assisting with requisitions before a recruiter logs into the
system.
When applicants come in, the recruiter gets information about qualified
candidates and their qualifications for the posted job as well as potential
gaps. If the pipeline is too thin, the agent can notify recruiters in tools
they already use, such as Slack, with timely sourcing actions and draft
outreach for review. Sourcing runs in the background, but outreach to
candidates still requires recruiter approval before anything is sent.
The Talent Acquisition Agent can also coordinate interview scheduling, give
interviewers relevant context, and draft feedback for quick review. Recruiter
preferences, like interview timing or format, can be saved to the agent's
memory, personalizing the experience as the agent learns how each team works
best.
The Talent Acquisition Agent works across the tools teams already use,
including Workday Recruiting, HiredScore, Paradox, native Workday skills, and
connected sourcing providers. The organization decides which actions can run
on their own and which still require a person.
Time to fill moves from weeks to days. Recruiters have more capacity to focus
on the conversations that move hiring forward.
Payroll Agent Will Catch Problems Before Payroll Runs
Workday agents are already helping payroll teams work faster. The Payroll
Agent will go a step further. It will be able to keep checking payroll and
catch problems before payroll runs, giving teams one clear view of where
payroll stands.
For example, a series of organizational changes mean an audit of retroactive
adjustments is critical. The agent can run the audit, flag anything outside of
defined parameters, and draft any needed communications to the employees for
the payroll team to review.
Accounting Agent Will Help Keep the Books Audit-Ready With Continuous
Financial Testing
When a new customer signs a contract, the Accounting Agent can automatically
extract key details, prepare accounting entries, recommend revenue recognition
and billing schedules, and remind teams as payment deadlines approach. The
agent is able to prepare the work, while accounting teams stay responsible for
review, judgment, and decisions.
The agent can also help teams stay audit-ready throughout the year. It can
test relevant transactions in the background, identifying issues and providing
guidance to the audit team, helping to move an audit from a periodic scramble
to a proactive control. That means accounting teams have more time for the
work that needs judgment and less time chasing paperwork.
Deployment Agent Will Help Customers Adopt New Capabilities from Every Release

Since Workday announced the Deployment Agent last September, nearly 5,000
customers have activated it to simplify how they set up, update, and manage
Workday.
Every Workday release brings new capabilities, but adopting them across a
large environment takes time and planning. Deployment Agent will analyze how
customers are currently using Workday and identify high-impact capabilities
they haven't activated yet for their consideration.
For example, when a new release includes a capability that matches a
customer's industry or workflow, Deployment Agent will flag it, explain what
it does, project the operational impact, create a step-by-step configuration
and testing plan, and prepare the setup so teams can review and approve
adoption. This will transform how customers respond to every release, helping
to  move rollouts from months of planning to weeks of execution. 
Deployment Agent also continues to help with regulatory and compliance
changes, flagging when new laws or policies may affect how a company has
Workday set up and drafting a plan to address them.
"Agents are moving from singles pickleball - one human and one agent - to
an orchestra phase, where the human is the director and agents run in the
background, proactively doing the work," Holger Mueller, vice president and
principal analyst, Constellation Research. "Workday's agents for talent
acquisition, payroll, accounting, and more are built for that shift, working
as autopilots while people stay in charge."
Availability
Autopilot capabilities in the Talent Acquisition Agent are available today to
early adopter customers with general availability planned for early 2027.
Autopilot capabilities for the Payroll, Accounting, and Deployment Agents are
planned to be available to early adopter customers in early calendar year
2027.
For More Information
Learn how Workday's Talent Acquisition Agent handles routine hiring tasks
automatically, keeping hiring moving 24/7.Read about how Sana brings the
agentic experience to every employee.Register and attend Workday
Rising sessions in the digital program:Office of the CHRO Keynote:
Supercharge Your People with AI that Anticipates, Advises, and Acts [26-KEY4],
Oct. 13 at 11:00am PT.Workday Talent Acquisition: Strategy and Vision
[26-PSVHR2659], Oct. 13 at 3:15pm PT.

About Workday
Workday operates at the heart of the enterprise - HR, finance, and IT -
where the margin for error is effectively zero. By tightly coupling AI with
the context, guardrails, and trusted processes that run the business, Workday
goes beyond AI that assists work to agents that are capable of driving
measurable outcomes. More than 11,500 organizations worldwide, including more
than 65% of the Fortune 500, trust Workday to deliver. For more information
about Workday, visit workday.com.
© 2026 Workday, Inc. All rights reserved. Workday and the Workday logo are
trademarks of Workday, Inc. All other brand and product names are trademarks
or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
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.
 

SOURCE Workday Inc.

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