Workday Rising was a 72-hour whirlwind that showcased exciting new AI technologies, customer innovations, partner collaborations, and more. Check out five key takeaways from the event that will drive positive change for organizations well into the future.
True to its Forever Forward theme, the largest Workday Rising ever focused on AI-based innovations that supercharge the way HR, finance, and IT professionals excel in their roles and drive positive change for their organizations.
With more than 18,000 attendees on site and thousands more joining online for a whirlwind 72 hours, attendees experienced how Workday plans to illuminate the path ahead and forge a brighter future.
Here are the top takeaways from an unforgettable week at Workday Rising in Las Vegas.
Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach previewed Workday Illuminate in the Welcome Keynote, showing real-world applications of AI designed to boost productivity, efficiency, and insights—in short, to “light up the future of work.”
In his Innovation Keynote address, Workday Co-Founder and Executive Chair Aneel Bhusri outlined the vision of Workday Illuminate and introduced four new AI Agents: Recruiter Agent, Expenses Agent, Succession Agent, and Optimize Agent.
“Agents are your very own team of business-process experts making your life easier and enhancing the performance of those processes,” Bhusri said.
“Illuminate can also orchestrate multiple AI agents, coordinate cognitive tasks, and multi-stakeholder and business processes, bringing in the right people to make the right decisions. This is the true power of Workday.”
Workday Illuminate, AI Agents, and other product announcements during the event—including Workday Wellness and the new Workday Assistant—build on more than a decade of experience with AI.
Workday also shared continued investments in AI outside of the company with its strategic capital arm, Workday Ventures, and made an exciting announcement to bring more innovation into the company: a definitive agreement to acquire Evisort, an AI-native document intelligence platform.
Chief Product Officer David Somers emphasized the importance of partners and customers in coming together with Workday to create what he calls 3X Innovation.
That includes products built by Workday product teams that address a broad set of customer requirements; apps built by customers using Workday Extend to address their specific needs; and apps built by partners to market to customers via Workday Marketplace.
“3X innovation leverages the collective strengths of the ecosystem, becoming a force multiplier,” Somers said in the Innovation Keynote.
Bhusri and Somers highlighted key investment areas for Workday moving forward: user experience, global functionality, industry-specific functionality, and the “better together” approach of using the full Workday platform for managing a company’s most important assets—their people and their money.
When discussing Workday Illuminate and other solutions, one thing became clear: the user experience is at the center of Workday innovation.
Just as the new AI Agents will help make tasks easier for users, the new Workday Assistant serves as a natural language companion throughout the Workday experience, from search to support, to provide Workday users with what they need and guide them where to go, said Ali Fuller, senior vice president of experience at Workday.
Customers are already benefiting from improved findability within Workday Assistant, Fuller noted, sharing that it’s saved customers five million minutes of time just since April.
So much about moving organizations forever forward is learning from one another, and those innovations appeared again and again throughout the week.
During the eight Industry Summits, Workday leaders gave awards to customers across many industries, including financial services, healthcare, retail, and more. Examples of award categories include Collaboration Champion, Process Innovator, and Trailblazer.
Workday also held the first North American Customer Awards, honoring some of the most forward-thinking companies and leaders. Selected from more than 200 nominees, customers were recognized in five categories: Global Workplace Transformation, Powering Innovation, Finance of the Future, Rapid Time to Value, and Industry Hero.
Throughout the week, attendees heard impactful customer stories. Merlix Reynolds, vice president of accounting at retail company RaceTrac, spoke with Workday Co-President Doug Robinson about how her team uses Workday technology—and what it means for elevating her people.
RaceTrac employees use self-service features to pull profit-and-loss statements and other reports, while increased process efficiencies have helped finance and accounting teams better partner with the business.
“If I give them cool technology and innovative ways to do the basic things that our accountants have to do, I can focus them on innovating and being efficient and following the business,” said Reynolds.
“Now that we have this platform, and people in my business can see the power of it, we get called to the table. My accountants get the opportunity to sit in with C-suite people to innovate and figure out how to give them the data they need to run their business.”
With more than 18,000 attendees on site and thousands more joining online for a whirlwind 72 hours, attendees experienced how Workday plans to illuminate the path ahead and forge a brighter future.
Supporting customers with industry-specific solutions was a theme that emerged again and again throughout Workday Rising.
In the Innovation Keynote, Bhusri said industry-specific functionality was one of four key investment areas for Workday. Later on, Terrance Wampler, group general manager for the office of the CFO, shared Workday’s vision for its first industry-specific analytic application leveraging Workday Illuminate.
Workday will launch its first industry analytic application within 12 months–for healthcare–and is working on additional industries, he said. One example he shared was the ability to assess individual hospital financial performance across a healthcare company, identifying problems and anomalies and their sources.
In addition, Workday launched 12 new Industry Accelerators to help customers rapidly modernize their finance and HR operations through the combined power of Workday and its partner ecosystem. Featuring offerings from partners Accenture, CrossVue, Deloitte, Invisors, Kainos, KPMG, Mercer, and PwC, the newest Industry Accelerators span banking, healthcare, higher education, technology and media, retail and hospitality, and professional services sectors.
Watch on-demand video of Workday Rising content with the all-access pass. Learn more.
During the Innovation Keynote, Workday leaders shared how Workday Illuminate will accelerate manual tasks, provide real-time assistance, and transform entire business processes.
Workday is introducing enhancements across an array of products focused on hyper-automating processes for financial management, planning, and spend management while improving the speed and accuracy of data insights.
At Workday, we believe that AI can fundamentally transform the enterprise. Here’s why.
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