Workday DevTalk: Stepping Off the AI Hype Train for Better AI Impact

Chris Bledsoe: Hello, and welcome back to Workday DevCon broadcast, coming to you live from Las Vegas. I'm Chris Bledsoe, your host and Head of Developer Relations here at Workday. I am thrilled to be bringing you another exciting DevTalk episode right from our own developer conference. With me is Dan Sundt from Principal at Deloitte. We're going to be talking about the boundless possibilities that AI offers within the realm of Workday development. Thanks for joining us today, Dan.

Dan Sundt: Thanks for having me.

Bledsoe: Yeah, absolutely. Before we dive in, maybe you can share a little bit about your background and share with the audience what your role is and what you've been doing there at Deloitte.

Sundt: Sure. I lead our Workday HCM market offering across the US. So all the work that we do from a Workday HR perspective. I've been a part of the Workday ecosystem ever since Deloitte had a Workday practice, so probably going on about 15 years.

Bledsoe: That's fantastic. So, we're here to talk a little bit about AI. One of the things I'm really interested to hear from you is: How do you see AI transforming and changing the businesses that you are working with, and how do you think that applies to your various customers that you'd like to engage with?

Sundt: Yeah. I think the interesting thing as we kind of get a little bit over the hype cycle of AI is now actually turning it down into solutions that are impactful for individual industries and sectors. So, ways that you can bring direct insights that come from outward industry data along with their core business data, their people data, and bring that together to deliver insights at the enterprise level, but I think  the interesting thing that Workday is down actually to the individual level. That's where I think the real power is coming and some of the things that I'm excited about.

Bledsoe: Well, that's really cool. So when you think about industries, there's a ton of industries and you've got to think that each one has a slightly different approach to the way they work at their business and the way they actually leverage Workday within it. Maybe you could share some insights that you have seen in your favorite industries to talk to.

Sundt: Yeah, I would say that one industry that has had a ton of overall transformation and continues to go is banking. In particular, we see different jobs and different functions changing across the financial services industry as well. I think Workday is so interestingly situated at the crux of banking so that an organization can see some of the key trends, can see some of the ways that jobs are changing, can see things that they will need to adapt to in the future as well, and work they can bring together both those financial insights as well as everything about the individual employees, their skills, how they need to be uniquely positioned and bring those together.

Bledsoe: That's really interesting too, because the thing that I love about what Workday does is we're really good at meeting with the people who are running the business. They understand the value propositions, and they're also trying to look for what are the best strategies, especially when I'm looking at AI. Because you go out there in the market and there's all kinds of things you could learn about, everything from ChatGPT to Gemini to others like Bard, where you go, "Okay, how do I integrate that and make that a part?" Now, here at Workday, we have this thing called Extend. And I'm really curious to hear from your perspective. When you look at products like Extend as a platform, how do you see leveraging that being useful and valuable to the customers and to your own businesses in terms of what they want to make and build?

Sundt: Well, I think one of the key things, and when I talk to a lot of my clients, is about how are they getting the true value out of Workday? And I think Extend and the overall platform is a great example of how a Workday customer can continue to thrive and get a lot of additional value. And in particular, when you start to bring the AI tools that Workday is bringing forward and you can bring together Prism and all the other parts of the Workday platform together, they truly have one stop that they can bring all those key insights. And so instead of necessarily having to go out into the market and look for a bunch of different best-of-breed solutions and figure out how to integrate this together, Workday's doing the hard part, which is amazing. And that can be-- as someone who then services Workday's customers, we can talk about the value and how we can go after that.

Bledsoe: I think that's really great because one of the things we like to say is that when you start leveraging Workday as a platform, we have a lot of different technologies you can access, right? You described Prism with analytics, Extend with building the interface, and even stuff like adaptive planning and others, and we like the term better together -right? - because you've already made this investment in what it takes to use our platform, but if you can take that and tweak out and pull the information that's the most relevant to your business, I think that's what's really exciting. Now, we did our opening keynote earlier today and announced a bunch of other new technologies that we're working on. So I'm wondering, is there any of the technologies that we've talked about or looking at that you're most interested in today?

Sundt: Well, I think that everything you're doing from a co-pilot perspective is really interesting. I think that as we think about how our developers and how in particular our technical resources are going to be developing these next-generation solutions, they need to have the right tools. They need to be able to iterate and do them quickly and to be able to take away a lot of that friction, a lot of that work before that maybe I had to go and access a lot of different documentation. But to have it all there, the basis of prompts, a really straightforward workflow, That's incredibly powerful. And I'm actually very excited to see-- because I think that some of our folks are going to get their hands on it while they're here to really get to see what they're gonna produce.

Bledsoe: That's really true. And one of the things that we love to do here at DevCon is we love to do hackathons. And I know that you guys came ready for the hackathon.

Sundt: We did.

Bledsoe: Is there anything you can share about what you guys are thinking about when you come into things like a hackathon or in DevCon that you're looking to either draw value and understanding out of and then how you could take that and apply it to your business and the way you guys work?

Sundt: Yeah, I mean, we've really leveraged hackathons in the past to expand and think about, "What are some real-world use cases?" I mean, these are not just lab experiments that we think are going to go nowhere. There's a very heavy vetting process that goes through to really flesh out these ideas. And it's a global effort that we do from a Deloitte perspective. So I'm really excited. We have over 40 people here. 

Bledsoe: Wow, that's fantastic.

Sundt: I think we have three or four different teams, actually, some of them working together hand in hand with clients. So I think they're going to be producing some pretty cool stuff. So let's just see.

Bledsoe: That's fantastic. And I love the idea that as you're forming these teams, you're trying to figure out a way to bring in your clients so that they too can participate in this, right? Because a lot of times, we'll talk to people, and they'll go, "How hard is it to build? What does it take?" And I think it's great partners like Deloitte that can come in and go, "Hey, look, sit down with us. We will show you how the sausage is made," so to speak, and then build something interesting and exciting. And then, "Hey, let's see how much we can do in a 24-hour time period." I think that kind of stuff is really exciting.

Sundt: It's very exciting. And it's amazing how constraints can really actually bring out creativity. So, it will be very interesting to see. I know they're excited. I know we have some great use cases that we're going to be trying out. Excited to see what you think.

Bledsoe: Oh, dude. I'm really excited about it. And I also love that global aspect, right, because that's today. Today, it's not just one location. But you have teams that are dispersed throughout the world. And especially in the hackathon 24 hours-- I mean, some hackers, they're hardcore, and they'll work the full 24, but you want to be at your best when you build this stuff out. So anyway, well, what I want to say is that these are awesome insights, Dan. And I just really want to thank you again for joining us today. This has been a fascinating conversation, and I really appreciate you being a part of it.

Sundt: Well, thank you so much, Chris, and thank you to Workday.

Bledsoe: All right. You're very, very welcome. So to all of our viewers, thank you for joining us here at Workday DevCon. Sit tight, we'll be right back at you.