A New Era: Workday Ventures Portfolio Founders Share Their Vision for Agentic AI

Innovation today isn't just about incremental change—it’s about accelerating toward a fundamentally new (and better) way to work. That’s why, at Workday Ventures, we don't just anticipate what's next; we actively invest to help build it, putting strategic capital to work as an engine for transformative change. 

As the strategic investment arm of Workday, we manage a $500 million fund dedicated to partnering with founders who are building the core infrastructure and intelligence of the future enterprise. By integrating their speed, creativity, and fresh perspectives with our enterprise expertise, customer access, and platform extensibility, we become a force multiplier, ensuring our customers are equipped with trustworthy, cutting-edge tools.

The next wave of technology isn't about replacing humans; it is about amplifying human capability. When work becomes predictive, connected, and intelligent, teams can spend more time on what matters most—creativity, strategy, and collaboration.

The AI Pivot: Humans at the Center of Actionable Intelligence

The most profound shift we're tracking is the rise of agentic AI—systems that don’t wait for instructions but anticipate and act. This is moving the corporate world beyond passive automation to actionable intelligence, ensuring that humans remain at the center of strategic work while AI manages routine operations. 

To understand how this shift is playing out in the real world, I spoke with several of our portfolio founders, who offered a powerful look at where the enterprise is headed:

Empowering the frontline: The future of frontline work isn't about forcing adoption—it's about creating tools that understand and serve people. In 2026, we're building technology that meets workers where they are, empowering them to serve themselves while lightening the load on every manager. —Sean Nolan, Founder and CEO, Blink

HR leads the agent workforce: AI agents will be embedded in every enterprise function—and HR will be one of the first to lead the shift. Repetitive workflows across the hire-to-retire employee lifecycle, from sourcing candidates and scheduling interviews to onboarding, IT support, policy queries, and more will be fully agentic. This will free up HR teams to do what they do best: focus on culture and strategy to build great companies. —Surojit Chatterjee, Founder and CEO, Ema

The dawn of proactive finance: For finance professionals, the era of passive automation is over. Success won't be measured by the speed of closing the books, but by the strategic value added. Agentic AI will transform finance into an adaptive, predictive, and performance-driven function that anticipates needs and acts proactively. —Guy Leibovitz, Co-Founder and CEO, Nominal

The integration layer is the new intelligence edge: The true competitive advantage in AI won't be its inherent complexity, but its seamless integration and ability to work across all a company's tools. Picture AI as a secure and auditable assistant, actively managing tasks like processing orders, updating records, or handling queries—delivering practical value, moving beyond insights to actionable intelligence. The integration layer itself becomes the most crucial investment. —Roman Sestier, Co-Founder and CEO, StackOne

Connect With Workday Ventures at Workday Rising EMEA

At Workday Ventures, we are not just funding innovation, we are co-creating it with founders who are reimagining how work gets done.

Join us at Workday Rising EMEA, where some of our portfolio companies will be in the Ventures Zone on the Expo Floor. Come discover their solutions and gain insights to help power your organization into the next era of work.