Workday Rising 2025: What the Latest Innovations Mean for Your Strategy

 

10.02.2025 | Technical Articles

 

With Workday Rising 2025 now in the rearview mirror, the question on every customer’s mind is: how do the major announcements translate into opportunities (or risks) for businesses like yours?

Whether you attended in person in San Francisco or are just now catching up, here’s a deeper look at the key themes and how we think they should inform your next moves.

AI Agents Are More Than a Buzzword — They’re Workday’s Strategic Core

One of the most talked-about announcements at Workday Rising was the expansion of Workday Illuminate with a range of new purpose-built AI agents. Workday broadened the AI agents available through their Agent System of Record (ASOR), including those created by members of their Workday Agent Partner Network:

• AI’s AP Invoices Agent: Automates invoice processing and vendor inquiries, reducing errors and providing real-time cash visibility.
• Uplimit’s Skill-Building Agent: Delivers adaptive practice scenarios with instant AI guidance, scaling quality feedback without extra work from facilitators.
• AI’s Leadership Coach Agent: Supports managers with priorities, meeting prep, follow-ups, kudos, and coaching on tough feedback.

However, the Workday Marketplace isn’t the last stop for AI agents. Workday Build, a new developer platform for creating AI-powered solutions, will leverage the recently acquired Flowise Agent Builder so users can create custom agents through a low-code tool. In effect, Workday has created a sandbox where you can build, deploy, and manage agents that are calibrated to your existing applications and data.

This dual strategy—both pre-build and customizable agents—reflects Workday’s ambition to be central in the next wave of AI.

Customization Is King

For years, “one-size-fits-all ERP” has been a limiting concept in the enterprise software world. Workday Extend has long been a trailblazer for greater ERP customization. The announcements at Workday Rising reinforced those efforts.

The newly launched Workday Build platform is a centerpiece of that promise. It not only enables agent creation, but also supports orchestration, app extension, analytics, APIs, and more. All of these features are fortified with enterprise-grade security.

Once launched, Build will include the following features:

• A Developer Copilot will turbocharge the productivity of creators with AI-powered help
• Agent Gateway will leverage MCP-compliant APIs for connecting agents to other tools
• Integration with Workday Extend and other existing extension frameworks

The vision and tooling available through Workday Build already suggest a future where Workday customers continue to shape their AI experiences.

Quality Data and Connectivity Are Nonnegotiable

None of these innovations could function without high-quality, interoperable data underpinning them. To that end, Workday introduced Workday Data Cloud, a new data layer connecting HR and finance data with enterprise analytics and operational systems such as Databricks, Snowflake, and Salesforce. Notably, it uses zero-copy access for performance and governance.

This connectivity is important for two reasons:

1. It enables contextual AI—agents can pull in data from across systems to deliver richer, personalized outcomes.
2. It supports integration with organizations’ established analytics, BI, and data platforms rather than locking them into yet another silo.

For you, that means your Workday deployment can increasingly act as a hub (not an island), better coordinating your AI, analytics, and operations.

People — Learning, Growth, and the Human Touch

One of the most unexpected announcements came in their definitive agreement to acquire Sana, a leading AI-native platform for knowledge, search, and learning. Workday will integrate Sana’s tools, including Sana Learn and Sana Agents, to power a more unified, proactive employee experience.

Post-acquisition, Sana’s agents and learning capabilities will help Workday build what it calls the “new front door for work”—where knowledge, data, and action converge. Employees will be able to search across platforms (Workday, SharePoint, Google Drive, etc.), automate repetitive tasks, receive proactive suggestions, and even generate dashboards, documents, and learning experiences automatically. Early customer metrics show Sana deployments have already delivered time savings of up to 95% and efficiency gains of as much as 200 %.

What This Means for You

From our vantage point, here’s how you should think about capitalizing on these announcements:

• Start evaluating which agents deliver near-term ROI. The new Illuminate agents for HR and finance may create quick wins (e.g., performance review assistance, expense agent, etc.).
• Plan your extension/innovation strategy. With Workday Build, you can begin drafting ideas for custom agents and integrations that align with your unique workflows.
• Revisit data architecture. To fully exploit AI, ensure your data is clean, connected, and accessible. Consider how Workday Data Cloud might integrate with your existing BI or data platforms.
• Look ahead to the Sana integration. As Sana becomes a native part of Workday, you’ll want to explore how knowledge, learning, and agents can be woven into your employee experience.
• Engage with Agilysis as your guide. Whether you’d like a walkthrough of new features, help scoping your agent roadmap, or consulting on data strategy, we’re here to help you maximize your Workday investment.

Workday Rising 2025 was much more than a product update; it was a vision statement. If you’d like to dive deeper into any of these announcements (whether Build, Data Cloud, agents, or Sana) Agilysis would be glad to walk through tailored implications and next steps for your organization.

Whether with Workday staffing, Workday implementation support, or Workday phase X implementation, our team is ready to help you.

Want to stay current with the latest innovations beyond Workday Rising 2025? Check out our blog for Workday updates, releases, acquisitions, use cases, and best practices.

 

 

Related Articles

Workday BIRT Reports vs Workday Docs for Layouts

Improve Data with Duplicate Management Framework in Workday

 Workday Orchestrate Is Revolutionizing Integrations and Driving Efficiency