Nearly a week after laying off 1,750 employees, or about 8.5% of its workforce, Workday has announced a new system to manage and deploy a range of artificial intelligence agents.
On Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, the HR software maker announced its Workday Agent System of Record — which allows organizations to manage their AI agents — including those from Workday and third-party providers, all in one place, according to a news release.
The system also now offers role-based AI agents — including contract, payroll, financial auditing, and policy — that companies can deploy and manage. The AI agents will have skills that provide them with greater autonomy, more effective user support, and the ability to perform hundreds of tasks.
In a statement, Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and executive chair of Workday, expressed confidence that the company is well-positioned to lead a new era of workforce management in a trusted and ethical manner.
“The workforce of the future will include both humans and AI agents, and businesses that don’t learn to manage this incredibly complex reality will quickly fall behind,” Bhusri said. “The future is here, and just like with the transition to the cloud, we’re ready to help our customers get there first.”
Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach described AI agents as “digital employees” that will “peacefully coexist” with human workers. He told Fortune that he envisions the agents learning and acquiring new skills over time and eventually taking on entire roles within a company.
However, Eschenbach dismissed concerns that AI agents would replace human jobs but added that some positions may become obsolete.
“Humans are going to be re-skilled,” he told Fortune. “They’re going to want to do different things. They’re going to be doing tasks that they don’t get to today because they’re stuck doing the mundane.”
Regarding the management of AI agents through the new system, Eschenbach said companies will use the hub to define their roles and responsibilities, track their impact, and budget and forecast their costs — similar to the process of “onboarding” human employees.
According to the outlet, Eschenbach said Feb. 11’s announcement is unrelated to the Feb. 5 layoffs, which the company announced to better align its workforce with customer needs and increase investment in AI.
“This is a restructuring of our company to make sure we’re aligning our workforce at Workday around the biggest opportunities,” he said, per Fortune.
