HR giant Workday launches a new platform to manage all your AI Agents

HR giant Workday is launching a new way for enterprises to keep track of all of their Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents in one place. It’s also launching a few more AI agents of its own, for good measure.

Silicon Valley-based Workday announced on Tuesday the release of Workday Agent System of Record, which is meant to help customers keep track of their AI agents in one control center, regardless of whether the agent is managed by Workday or by a third party like Salesforce.

This system gives companies visibility into what all of their agents are supposed to be doing, which tasks they are actually completing, and who at the company has access to which agents. The software tracks the impact of each AI agent and projected costs. Companies can also use the platform to turn agents on and off entirely or turn certain skills or tasks on or off.

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Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach said on a press briefing that as AI agents become an increasing part of an enterprise company’s workflow, companies should have a way to manage them just like people.

“The workforce is expanding,” Eschenbach said. “It’s no longer just human workers, it’s now digital workers, and we need to have a unified platform that manages your entire workforce going forward.”

Eschenbach added that while AI will be one of the biggest technological breakthroughs of our lifetime, enterprises are still nervous to adopt the tech. He said that they are worried they could lose control of the agents at their company or that agents could get access to data they aren’t supposed to have. Workday hopes this product can mitigate the stress.

Workday also announced a fleet of its own new AI agents that are focused on areas including payroll, contracts, and financial auditing, among others. The company previously released four agents in September that targeted areas including recruitment and talent mobility.

Workday’s new agents are meant to be more role-driven than task-driven like many other AI agents. David Somers, Workday’s chief product officer, said that having these agents more focused on a role, compared to a task, means they have specific knowledge and expertise and will be able to better collaborate with human employees.

“A lot of people talk about agents, but these agents today are doing a task. They’re just doing something that is repetitive and making it faster,” Eschenbach added. “The true power of agents is when they become role based, and these role-based agents will maybe start out with a skill, but they will, over time, have many skills, and this is how we will truly unlock the power of AI.”

Workday won’t charge enterprises for use of the AI agent managing platform but will charge for use of Workday AI agents, as it has in the past.

This announcement comes a week after Workday laid off 1,750 employees, about 8.5% of its headcount, with Eschenbach stating at the time that the world had changed and the company needs a new approach, which included looking to hire more AI talent.