Analyst(s): Keith Kirkpatrick
Publication Date: October 2, 2025
Workday Rising 2025 unveiled Illuminate agents for HR, Financials, and Industry, Flex Credits, Workday Data Cloud partnerships, Microsoft Entra integration for agent governance, and Workday Build with a low-code agent builder – all on 2026 availability timelines.
What is Covered in this Article:
- New Workday Illuminate agents for HR, Financials, and Industry, plus quantified benefits from agents already in early access or GA.
- Workday Flex Credits as a subscription-based, fungible consumption model for AI features.
- Integration of Workday ASOR with Microsoft Entra Agent ID for identity, analytics, and cross-agent workflows.
- Workday Data Cloud with zero-copy access via Databricks, Salesforce, and Snowflake, including Live Data Query and Prism.
- Workday Build developer platform and Flowise Agent Builder availability details.
The News: At Workday Rising 2025 in San Francisco, Workday rolled out new Illuminate agents built into HR, Financials, and Industry workflows; introduced Workday Flex Credits; shared details on an integration between the Workday Agent System of Record and Microsoft Entra Agent ID; launched Workday Data Cloud in partnership with Databricks, Salesforce, and Snowflake; and unveiled Workday Build with a low-code Flowise Agent Builder. The company also emphasized that it now serves more than 11,000 organizations, more than 65% of the Fortune 500, and handles more than one trillion transactions annually.
The new Illuminate agents are expected in 2026. Flex Credits are available now, Workday Data Cloud will start early access in H1 FY 2026 with general availability later that year, and Flowise Agent Builder will open to Workday Extend Professional customers in the same timeframe.
Workday Rising 2025: AI Agents, Data Cloud, and Flex Credits Unveiled
Analyst Take: The announcements at Rising 2025 show Workday pushing further into becoming an AI-focused enterprise platform for managing people, money, and agents. Highlights include new Illuminate agents, tighter integration with Microsoft Entra Agent ID for governance, the launch of Workday Data Cloud with zero-copy data sharing, a new consumption model through Flex Credits, and the debut of the Workday Build developer platform.
Each of these is meant to embed AI deeper into workflows while widening access to data, customization, and oversight. Early results from existing agents show significant productivity improvements, offering proof in a market where MIT research found only 5% of companies have seen real ROI from AI. Taken together, the moves expand Workday beyond HR and finance into a unified AI platform, with most launches set for H1 FY 2026 and beyond.
Illuminate Agents and Demonstrated Outcomes
Workday is broadening its Illuminate lineup with new agents in HR, Financials, and Industry, designed to handle repetitive, time-consuming processes. HR agents tackle business process setup, contingent labor documentation, sentiment analysis, job architecture, and performance reviews.
Financial-focused agents cover reconciliation, cost allocation, and financial close, with continuous compliance and fraud testing built in. In higher education, industry agents simplify academic requirements and student administration, helping reduce implementation timelines and administrative work.
Workday shared outcomes from current agents, such as cutting contract execution time by 65%, reducing staffing changes by up to 90%, saving around 900 hours a year in audit evidence collection, achieving payroll compliance four times faster, and trimming planning analysis by 30% (about 100 hours monthly). These results provide reference points for what organizations might expect as new agents are rolled out in 2026.
Flex Credits as a Scalable Model
To ease the costs tied to AI adoption, Workday rolled out Flex Credits, a universal, subscription-based model included in every contract. Credits refresh annually and can be applied across agents and platform features, eliminating complex pricing tiers. Organizations can scale their usage by purchasing additional credits as needed, creating a clearer link between cost and consumption.
Embedding credits directly into the subscription lowers the barrier to trying new AI services. The model’s long-term success will hinge on how well customers track consumption and tie credits back to business value, but it aligns with the growing market preference for eschewing seat-license pricing for more flexible consumption or outcome-based pricing approaches.
Indeed, according to Futurum’s 1H 2025 Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows Decision Maker Survey Report, consumption-based pricing is preferred by 38% of respondents, indicating buyers favor flexibility and alignment with usage patterns, while per-user, per-month pricing has declined to 20%, signaling waning interest in traditional SaaS-style licensing for GenAI. That said, preference for consumption-based pricing dropped significantly from 52% in 2024 to 38% in 2025, possibly due to cost unpredictability or usage sprawl concerns, a consideration Workday and other vendors will need to address as the market matures.
Figure 1: Pricing Model for GenAI Functionality Preference, 2024 vs. 2025
Governance Through Microsoft Integration
Workday is extending its Agent System of Record through integration with Microsoft Entra Agent ID, giving customers verified identities and centralized governance for AI agents. This allows agents built in Azure AI Foundry and Copilot Studio to be registered directly within Workday, ensuring interoperability and oversight.
Leaders can track usage, productivity gains, time savings, and ROI in real time. The integration also enables smooth workflows where tasks started in Microsoft 365 Copilot can be finished by a Workday agent without breaking context. The move highlights Workday’s positioning of governance and security as central to AI adoption.
Data Cloud and Open Data Access
With the launch of Workday Data Cloud, HR and finance data can now connect to external platforms without moving or duplicating data, thanks to zero-copy governance. Partnerships with Databricks, Salesforce Data Cloud, and Snowflake allow two-way sharing via Apache Iceberg, linking workforce and financial data with operational or market data. Features include a curated Workday Data Lake, SQL access through Live Data Query, and inbound queries through Prism for deeper analysis. Example use cases include blending employee engagement data with store performance in Snowflake or combining financials with risk and sales data in Databricks. Early access begins in H1 FY 2026, with full release later that year, marking a notable step in Workday’s stated platform transition.
Developer Platform and Customization with Build
Workday Build pulls developer tools into one platform for creating and extending AI-powered offerings on Workday. Flowise Agent Builder offers a low-code way to design and deploy agents that draw on Workday’s HR and financial data. Other tools include a Developer Copilot to speed coding and an Agent Gateway with MCP-compliant APIs for connecting to the Agent System of Record.
Workday also spotlighted its expanded Marketplace, partner ecosystem, and global developer community to drive adoption and certification. Flowise Agent Builder is slated for release to Workday Extend Professional customers in H1 FY 2026, representing an initial milestone in Workday’s effort to support enterprise-grade custom agents.
What to Watch:
- Customer willingness to adopt AI agents in regulated areas such as financial close and compliance, where continuous monitoring changes team processes.
- Flex Credits consumption patterns and cost transparency, given credits are included, renewable annually, fungible across features, and expandable without tiers or hidden fees.
- Developer adoption of Workday Build and Flowise Agent Builder, alongside Marketplace and partner programs.
- Competitive responses from Oracle, SAP, and ServiceNow may seek to counter Workday’s open platform and agent-driven approach.
You can read the original press releases announcing the news at Workday’s newsroom.
Disclosure: Futurum is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum as a whole.
Other insights from Futurum:
Is Workday’s $1.1B Sana Acquisition Enough to Dominate the AI Agent Race?
Workday Q2 FY 2026 Revenue Up 13%, AI Momentum Drives Guidance Lift
HR Software Market Dominated by Microsoft, SAP, Workday, and Oracle
Image Credit: Workday
Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
