Workday Rising 2025: The Most Transformative Rising Yet
Introduction: A New Era for Workday
San Francisco’s Moscone Center hosted more than 30,000 leaders in HR, Finance, and IT for Workday Rising 2025.
This year wasn’t just another product showcase—it marked Workday’s pivot from AI copilots to AI agents: governed, auditable, and designed to complete work inside the system.
Pull-Quote: “Illuminate your work day” wasn’t just a slogan—it was a statement of intent: automate the repetitive, empower the human.
Section 1: From Copilots to Agents
Key New Agents
- Case Agent – triages HR/IT tickets
- Performance Review Agent – drafts reviews from goals & feedback
- Financial Close Agent – accelerates reconciliations
- Document Intelligence Agent – parses contracts & invoices
- Talent Mobility Agent – surfaces career path options
Section 2: The Economics of Flex Credits
Workday introduced Flex Credits, a pooled consumption model for AI.
Why it matters:
- Predictable spend
- Shared across HR/Finance/IT
- Expand only when pilots succeed
Pull-Quote: “Flex Credits let enterprises dip a toe into AI without drowning in cost.”
Section 3: Workday Data Cloud
Agents need clean data. Enter the Data Cloud:
- Zero-copy integration with Snowflake, Databricks, Salesforce Data Cloud
- Live Data Queries for near real-time insight
- Prism enrichment with external datasets
Timeline: Early adopters in H1 2026, general availability later that year.
Section 4: Workday Build
Workday rebranded Extend into Build, a low-code platform to design apps, workflows, and agents.
Highlights:
- Agent Builder for drag-and-drop workflows
- Low-code tools for citizen developers
- Marketplace expansion for partner apps
Ready to translate Workday Rising 2025 into action?
Sama WDS offers a tailored “Rising to Action” workshop to help you map Workday’s latest innovations—agents, Flex Credits, Data Cloud, Build & Sana—onto your HR/Finance roadmap and accelerate value delivery.
Section 5: Sana Acquisition
Workday announced its $1.1B purchase of Sana, an AI-native knowledge & learning platform.
Benefits:
- Personalized learning paths
- AI search across policies and content
- Unified “front door” experience for Workday
Pull-Quote: “Sana turns Workday into not just a system of record—but a system of engagement.”
Section 6: Ecosystem & Governance
- Agent System of Record (ASOR): tracks and governs agent activity
- Collaboration integrations: trigger workflows from Slack & Teams
- Regulated industries focus: healthcare, higher ed, financial services
Ready to translate Workday Rising 2025 into action?
Sama WDS offers a tailored “Rising to Action” workshop to help you map Workday’s latest innovations—agents, Flex Credits, Data Cloud, Build & Sana—onto your HR/Finance roadmap and accelerate value delivery.
Section 7: Risks & Roadblocks
- Cost unpredictability if Flex Credits spike
- Regulatory risks (especially in hiring, payroll, finance)
- User trust must be earned—bad outputs could stall adoption
- Intense competition from Oracle, SAP, ServiceNow, Salesforce
Section 8: Before & After Use-Cases
Section 9: Roadmap & Timelines
- Late 2025: Agents in pilot, Flex Credits live
- H1 2026: Data Cloud early adopters
- Late 2026: Data Cloud GA, Sana integration
- 2027+: Workday as an enterprise agent platform
Section 10: Action Plan for Leaders
Within 30 Days
- Audit HR & Finance data quality
- Select 2–3 workflows for pilots
Within 90 Days
- Launch pilots using Flex Credits
- Train IT & HRIS teams on Build
Within 12 Months
- Adopt Data Cloud in analytics strategy
- Deploy Sana-powered learning and search
Conclusion
Workday Rising 2025 wasn’t about futuristic promises. It was about real agents, real data, real governance.
Pull-Quote: The winners won’t be those who wait—it will be the enterprises who pilot early, govern tightly, and scale ruthlessly.
