Workday unveils AI agents that work like humans

SINGAPORE – Are you ready to meet your AI colleagues? Or, better yet, are you ready to manage an entire fleet of these super-intelligent workers?

HR software giant Workday has introduced a new system designed to help businesses onboard, monitor, and optimise agentic AI as workers – with the same rigour as when you manage human employees.

Leading an AI workforce can now be streamlined, judging by the features of this new solution.

Dubbed the Agent System of Record, the new development is designed to provide real-time visibility, cost optimisation, and secure deployment of AI agents to ensure they operate efficiently and compliantly, Workday said.

The HR tech group also unveiled a suite of “role-based AI agents” that purportedly go beyond simple task automation.

The company sees enlisting these specialist AI agents no differently from taking a skills-based approach to workforce development.

The innovation is all part of a wider shift to a future where AI-driven digital workers are becoming integral to business operations.

Just the same, however, AI agents require structured oversight akin to traditional workforce management.

“The workforce of the future will include both humans and AI agents, and businesses that don’t learn to manage this incredibly complex reality will fall quickly behind,” said Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and executive chair of Workday.

Managing a fleet of AI agents like a human workforce

As AI becomes more embedded in enterprise workflows, businesses face new challenges in managing their AI investments efficiently.

Workday said its Agent System of Record offers a structured solution to these challenges.

For one, organisations can now onboard AI agents with predefined roles, skills, and secure data access, reducing deployment time and maximising value. (Is it time to bid goodbye to the costly hiring process?)

The platform also enables businesses to budget, forecast, and track AI agent performance, ensuring that AI investments deliver tangible business outcomes, Workday said.

All this supposedly gives businesses the ability to continuously monitor their AI agents, tracking their actions, enforcing policies, and managing operational costs to ensure peak performance.

This approach treats AI agents much like employees, embedding them into corporate structures with oversight mechanisms to maximise efficiency while minimising risks.

AI agents going beyond task automation

While many AI solutions in the market today are task-based – following rigid, predefined steps – Workday’s new role-based AI agents are said to function with greater autonomy.

Workday said these agents come equipped with configurable skills, allowing them to execute a wide range of responsibilities rather than simply following step-by-step commands.

One example of role-based agentic AI is a contracts agent, which will continuously analyse contracts across the enterprise, surfacing hidden obligations and opportunities in unstructured data to drive better business decisions and reduce risk.

Another is a payroll agent, which can identify errors in payroll data, automate compliance monitoring, and recommend corrective actions to ensure accurate and timely payroll processing.

A financial auditing agent, meanwhile, streamlines auditing processes by connecting business documents, monitoring transactions, and reconciling balances, reducing manual effort and improving compliance.

Then there’s the policy agent that can proactively read corporate policies and deliver relevant updates to employees and managers at the point of need. This ability of agentic AI aims to reduce HR help desk workload and enhance policy compliance, Workday said.

These digital workers supposedly build on Workday’s existing portfolio, which includes tech solutions for recruiting, talent mobility, succession planning, and workforce optimisation.

How Workday is expanding AI capabilities

Workday said it is making AI agents available through the Workday Marketplace, where businesses can discover, deploy, and extend AI capabilities to meet their specific needs.

Future updates will allow companies to further customise and enhance these AI agents using Workday’s developer platform, Workday Extend.

For now, the Workday Agent System of Record and the new role-based AI agents are in development and are expected to launch later this year.

All this shows that – as businesses increasingly rely on AI to streamline operations and support human workers – structured AI management will become a critical priority.

The latest innovation signals a shift towards a future where AI agents are no longer just tools, but actively managed digital colleagues, seamlessly integrated into enterprise ecosystems.