At Workday Rising 2025, Workday, Inc. unveiled the latest expansion of its Illuminate™ AI portfolio, introducing new agents designed for HR, Finance, and Industry. These purpose-built agents are embedded directly into workflows, transforming processes like performance reviews, workforce planning, and financial close into more streamlined, outcome-driven experiences.
The move comes as enterprises face mounting pressure to realize real business value from AI. Despite billions spent last year, only 5% of organizations reported measurable returns, according to an MIT study. Workday aims to change that by tightly integrating AI into everyday business operations, rather than delivering fragmented, siloed solutions.
“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 at 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.”
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Workday’s new HR agents include tools to automate job architecture design, streamline performance reviews, analyze employee sentiment, and accelerate contingent labor contract management. For Finance, the new agents tackle reconciliation, testing, and close processes, bringing real-time visibility and fraud detection. Meanwhile, Industry-focused agents target higher education, automating academic requirements and student administration to reduce administrative overhead.
These agents build on Workday’s growing portfolio, which already includes tools like the Contract Intelligence Agent (cutting execution time by 65%), the Frontline Agent (reducing staffing change management by 90%), and the Financial Audit Agent (saving customers up to 900 hours annually).
To accelerate adoption, Workday also introduced Flex Credits, a subscription-based model that gives customers built-in access to AI innovation, flexibility to scale usage, and transparency in cost. Customers can apply credits across agents and platform advancements as business needs evolve, ensuring AI remains adaptable and continuously valuable.
