Agentic AI: A New Era of Workforce Management

The dawn of Agentic AI—a transformative shift where artificial intelligence evolves from static tools to autonomous, goal-oriented agents—marks a new era in workforce management.

Within this context, Workday, a leader in enterprise solutions for human capital and financial management, has unveiled its Workday Agent System of Record alongside a suite of innovative role-based AI agents.

These developments position Workday as a pioneer in orchestrating a hybrid workforce of humans and digital agents, reflecting a broader trend where AI is no longer just an assistant but an active participant in achieving business objectives.

Workday’s Berea Shaffer, VP of Connected Experiences, Katie Holden, VP of Experience Platform, and David Somers, Chief Product Officer, discuss the launch of the Workday Agent System of Record and new AI agents.

Workday Agent System of Record: A Centralized Command for Agentic AI

The Workday Agent System of Record, powered by Workday Illuminate™, is a groundbreaking platform designed to manage an organization’s entire fleet of AI agents—both Workday-built and third-party—within a unified ecosystem.

As Agentic AI introduces autonomous agents capable of reasoning, planning, and executing complex tasks, enterprises face new challenges: deployment sprawl, security risks, compliance gaps, and cost inefficiencies. Workday’s solution addresses these by providing a centralized hub that brings order to this digital workforce revolution.

Key features of the Agent System of Record include:

• Centralized Management: Organizations can register, monitor, and govern all AI agents in one place, offering transparency into their activities and effectiveness. This mirrors how human employees are managed, extending Workday’s expertise in workforce oversight to digital labor.
• Streamlined Onboarding: New agents can be quickly integrated with defined roles, skills, and secure data access, accelerating their deployment and value delivery.
• Cost Optimization: Tools for budgeting, forecasting, and tracking ROI ensure efficient resource use, addressing the financial complexity of scaling AI agents.
• Security and Compliance: Automated configuration, access controls, and policy enforcement mitigate risks, aligning with Workday’s commitment to responsible AI principles.
• Real-Time Visibility: Leaders can monitor agent performance, enforce policies, and track costs dynamically, ensuring alignment with organizational goals.
• Orchestration: The system connects Workday and third-party agents, enabling collaboration on shared objectives, such as linking data sources for complex decision-making.

This platform reflects the Agentic AI paradigm by treating agents as digital employees with lifecycles that require training, governance, and performance evaluation. As Carl Eschenbach, CEO of Workday states:

“Humans and agents should peacefully coexist in a way that amplifies human performance.”

With over 10,500 organizations relying on Workday as their system of record, this solution leverages two decades of experience in managing sensitive data and complex processes to usher in a trusted, ethical framework for the agentic future.

New Role-Based AI Agents: Autonomy Meets Purpose

Complementing the Agent System of Record, Workday introduced a set of role-based AI agents designed to transcend traditional task automation. Unlike task-based agents that execute predefined steps, these agents embody configurable skill sets, mirroring human roles with greater autonomy and adaptability.

Announced alongside the system, they are tailored to transform specific HR and finance workflows, showcasing Agentic AI’s potential to understand goals, devise plans, and act independently. These agents, currently in development and slated for release later in 2025, include:

• Contracts Agent: Continuously analyzes enterprise contracts, uncovering hidden obligations and opportunities within unstructured data. It drives proactive actions to capture value and mitigate risks, acting as a strategic partner rather than a mere processor.
• Payroll Agent: Enhances payroll efficiency by identifying invalid data, automating audit workflows, monitoring compliance, and recommending fixes. Its role-based nature allows it to adapt to evolving regulatory needs.
• Financial Auditing Agent: Boosts audit efficiency by connecting complex documents to monitor transactions, reconcile balances, and review controls. It also enables audit firms to build integrated apps, extending its utility beyond internal use.
• Policy Agent: Proactively disseminates the latest corporate policies to employees and managers wherever they work, enhancing compliance and reducing HR helpdesk volume by anticipating needs.

These agents align with the Agentic AI vision by moving beyond rote automation to role-specific support, amplifying human potential. For instance, the Policy Agent doesn’t just store rules—it anticipates when and where policy guidance is needed, delivering it seamlessly.

This shift from task-based to role-based agents reflects Workday’s belief, as articulated by co-founder Aneel Bhusri, that “the workforce of the future will include both humans and AI agents,” requiring a management system as robust as that for human employees.

Context in the New Era of Agentic AI

Agentic AI represents a leap from reactive, query-driven systems (like early chatbots) to proactive, decision-making entities capable of acting as “digital teammates.”

This era, fueled by advancements in large language models transitioning into “large action models,” is reshaping enterprises by introducing hundreds of specialized agents—from recruitment to supply chain optimization. However, this proliferation risks chaos without governance, as IT leaders grapple with data security, ethical use, and operational coherence.

Workday’s innovations address this directly. The Agent System of Record provides the infrastructure to harness Agentic AI’s power responsibly, while the role-based agents demonstrate its practical application.

Integrated with the Workday Marketplace, where customers and partners can discover, deploy, and customize agents, and supported by Workday Extend for tailored development, these tools create an ecosystem that balances innovation with control. Industry leaders like AWS’s Swami Sivasubramanian and Accenture’s Julie Sweet have praised this approach, noting its potential to “ethically manage” agents and “create a seamless working experience” between humans and AI.

In this new era, Workday positions itself not just as a software provider but as a steward of workforce evolution, blending human and digital labor into a cohesive, productive force. The anticipation builds for a future where Agentic AI, guided by Workday’s vision, redefines how work is done—securely, efficiently, and human-centrically.