Workday has had a busy December with its Workday Rising EMEA conference, joining the S&P 500 stock index – and even winning an award in the Best ERP Vendor category at The ERP Today Awards 2024.
But how about its AI commitment under the chairmanship of Aneel Bhusri, technologist and former CEO?
It was recently revealed by S&P Dow Jones Indices that after going public in 2012, and then turning a profit two fiscal years ago after years of losses, Workday will be added to the S&P 500 from December 23, another significant milestone for the cloud-based finance and human capital management (HCM) company.
Signifying a healthy growth with $2.160bn total revenues, an increase of 15.8 percent year-on-year (YoY) in its fiscal Q3 25 results and projecting a 14 percent subscription revenue growth in fiscal 2026, Workday’s mission of effectively managing companies’ people and money stands strong. But will AI help its position in the HCM marketplace become a stronger one?
The AI promise
At its recent annual EMEA conference in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Workday announced new Illuminate capabilities for Peakon Employee voice, targeting to unlock deeper and faster employee insights with AI.
The new AI features promise to help routinely overburdened managers by analyzing large volumes of employee feedback and delivering gathered insights and recommendations to help make important decisions to retain top talent and build highly engaged, loyal teams.
As attracting, retaining and engaging top talent has become paramount in the current business landscape, according to Anne-Sofie Nielsen, vice president of product and engineering at Workday, “Peakon Employee Voice with these new Illuminate capabilities gives organizations – and specifically people managers – the insights and tools they need to foster exceptional employee experiences, build a thriving workforce and achieve greater organizational success.”
While CEO Carl Eschenbach commented in an interview with CNBC at the beginning of the year that the company has “built AI deep into our platform, and we’ve been approaching [it] in a very responsible way,” one must wonder how much substance there is below the surface of its AI promise.
While the new announcement connects Illuminate to Workday Peakon Employee Voice, it seems rather sparse coming as the only update announced of late, especially considering the CEO’s bold stances about putting trust in AI and his belief that to truly be a name in the AI game, it has to be a robust part of your offering. One should also consider that galvanized tech innovation was promised as former co-CEO Aneel Bhusri stepped into his current chair role this year, something teased in our Workday cover story with Bhusri and Eschenbach when both were leading the company, alongside other interviews with Workday leadership.
While the company’s AI promise seems to have dwindled; it is refreshing to see that as some influential corporations are mandating an office return on a full or near-full-time basis, adding lengthy commutes to the productivity race, Workday is putting its money where its mouth is as a leader in the human resources space.
Alongside the Workday Peakon Employee announcement, the company shared that it uses Employee Voice to garner insights from its more than 20,000 workmates. This feedback has assisted Workday’s own strategy – leading to the introduction of a ‘Work From Almost Anywhere’ benefit and a rise in flexibility scores as a result.
Moreover, consistent employee feedback on growth prompted leaders to prioritize the issue and develop personalized action plans, resulting in a 35 percent increase in the number of employees reporting satisfaction with their growth and career progression at Workday.
Amid general positivity for the vendor, is the lack of AI action an indicator of something deeper or is the new year about to deliver more of what we’ve been expecting?
