Workday's New APAC President on What's Next for Enterprise AI

Asia Pacific has long been a region where businesses move quickly, adapt pragmatically and embrace new technology as a driver of growth. As AI reshapes work, that appetite for innovation gives APAC a powerful opportunity.

For John Lombard, Workday’s new President of Asia Pacific, the moment feels both familiar and urgent. After more than 30 years in technology and advisory leadership – much of it spent living and working across the region – he has seen APAC navigate major technology shifts before.

Here, Lombard discusses what makes the region’s approach to AI distinctive, what enterprises need to get right next, and why he chose to join Workday now.

1. You were born in Australia, but you’ve lived and worked all over the world. Where have you spent most of your time?

Lombard: I love traveling and have lived outside of Australia for more than half of my career. Asia Pacific is the best region in the world. I just love it here. I spent about 15 years living in Singapore in two stints, lived in Germany for a short period and almost two years living in Indonesia, and I've been to India about 30 times.

2. What’s distinctive about the way APAC companies are responding to the AI challenge?

Lombard: The difference is how quickly people across Asia Pacific are embracing AI. There’s a real grassroots energy to it.

Research has found 70% of frontline employees in the region are already regular AI users, compared with 51% globally. That energetic uptake reflects my experience of living and doing business in the region. 

There’s a real start-up mindset in Asia Pacific, which translates into CEOs and their people being excited and pragmatic about technology. Compared with peers in the US or Europe, people in APAC are much more likely to experiment, do more with less and use new tools to drive growth. 

3. AI tools can perform individual tasks faster, but outcomes aren’t improving at the same rate. Why not?

Lombard: To a large extent, it’s because organisations have added AI on top of and around their existing systems, rather than embedding AI within them. This means employees need to step in and manually bridge the gaps themselves, moving information from one system to another, and acting as the glue between systems that were never designed to work together.

We call this 'The Copy/Paste Economy'. Workday’s research found that only about 30% of organisations in Asia Pacific have moved AI from the periphery to the core. Without embedding AI directly into core workflows, we’re generating more admin work for employees, which makes them feel busy but unproductive.

In fact, four in five employees across Asia Pacific and Japan say that navigating processes and systems is a source of stress. So there's a real imperative for organisations to embed AI into the trusted systems that already run their business.

Without it, they're just bolting on AI tools and perpetuating the 'copy/paste' economy.

4. As AI agents take on more work, what risks are they potentially introducing?

Lombard: The biggest risk is that we give AI more authority without giving it enough context. An agent can be incredibly fast, but if it doesn’t understand your policies, permissions and processes, it can make a decision that looks right in isolation but creates risk elsewhere.

That becomes much more significant as agents move beyond answering questions and start taking action.

An agent could skip a required background check, apply the wrong pay scale or bypass an approval process – not because it’s malicious, but because it doesn’t know about or understand the importance of those controls.

There’s also a fundamental difference between AI and the systems businesses have traditionally relied on.

Core business processes are designed to be deterministic: you know the rules, you can predict the outcome and you can audit what happened. AI is probabilistic. It reasons and recommends based on likelihoods.

That’s enormously powerful, but you can’t give that intelligence unrestricted access to mission-critical processes. The challenge is to give agents the context and guardrails they need to act safely.

5. Workday talks about the difference between ‘lawless’ and ‘lawful’ AI agents. What does that mean – and why does it matter?

Lombard: A ‘lawless’ agent knows how to get a job done, but it doesn’t necessarily know the rules it needs to follow. A ‘lawful’ agent does both: it can perform the task while operating within the policies, permissions and business processes of your organisation.

That’s important because trust is fundamental to enterprise AI. If you can’t trust an agent to follow the rules, you have to limit what you allow it to do – or have people taking time to continually check its work.

When governance is built in, you can give a lawful agent greater responsibility while retaining control and accountability. Trust doesn’t limit what AI can do. It’s what gives AI the right to do more.

This is especially important when it comes to critical functions like HR, finance and IT. You have to get it right every single time – 98% right is 100% wrong.

6. So how do you get enterprise AI adoption 100% right?

Lombard: You embed AI tools inside the systems that already run the business. Our research found the vast majority of employees agree that AI increases their confidence in decisions – but only when they trust the underlying system and data.

In other words, people want an AI tool that is connected to the systems they already rely on to run payroll, close the books and make decisions that carry real consequences.

The difference in time savings between organisations that have made this shift and those that haven't is substantial.

Across Asia Pacific and Japan, employees in organisations with AI deeply embedded in core systems are 1.8x as likely to report that AI has reduced task time by 25% or more, than those that don’t use AI in core systems.

The variable is where in the operating model the AI actually lives.

7. You were a Workday customer long before you joined the company. What did that experience teach you about Workday? And what made you join now?

Lombard: When I was at a previous company, our HR leader decided to move to Workday, and I pushed back! But I had to eat my words because people loved using Workday. The difference in the experience was chalk and cheese compared with what we’d had before.

So I was already an enthusiastic user of the platform, but what attracted me to make the move now is where we're going next.

Historically, businesses have relied on Workday to hold their people and financial data, with processes that are deterministic by design – a clear start, a clear end, and an outcome you can audit.

Today, AI means that same foundation can do more.

Because our agents inherit the policies, permissions and approval chains that already run the business, they can anticipate something that needs attention, advise on the right action – showing the recommendation, the reason and the rule behind it – and, where appropriate, act on it within the rules of your business.

I've already experienced the power of that trusted foundation as a customer – and I know the trust we've earned in the industry.

Today, as that same foundation takes on more of the anticipating, advising and acting on our customers' behalf, I think the opportunity ahead for Workday and our customers is incredible.

8. What are you looking forward to most in your new role at Workday?

Lombard: From day one, I've prioritised spending time with Workmates across the region, and with as many customers and partners as I can. Listening and learning from them has given me the best possible start, and I'm looking forward to continuing that.

But honestly, what excites me most is the scale of what's ahead. Asia Pacific is one of the fastest-moving regions in the world for AI adoption, and I get to help our customers turn that energy into real enterprise outcomes rather than isolated experiments.

That's a rare opportunity, and it's exactly why I took this role.

I'm also looking forward to Elevate next year – from all accounts it gets better every year, and I can't wait to see what product innovations the team has to share (I've heard the after party is lots of fun too!).

Organisations are ready to move past pilots and point solutions to enterprise AI solutions that get work done. Join John Lombard in this exclusive digital experience as he shares Workday’s AI vision and the latest Asia Pacific research: The Copy/Paste Economy.