There's nothing better than being able to simplify: Workday SVP tells us why effective AI usage can be a superpower for your business

Date:
Sun, 23 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Description:
Workday tells us why AI can influence all areas of your organization, and why younger workers could play a key role.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter As AI revolutionizes large
parts of business processes, businesses of all sizes are looking for the best way to use it effectively and efficiently.

While AI may promise the world, making sure your company has an AI strategy which works effectively will go a long way to maximizing the chances of success. Workday has long been at the forefront of AI tools and services for organizations everywhere, and I spoke to Max Wessel, SVP Product at Workday, to find out more. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here: "Uniquely suited" In such a crowded and competitive marketplace, I ask Wessel what he thinks makes Workday stand out from the competition.

If you think about what AI should deliver for a user, it should be a system that anticipates, advises, and reacts on behalf of intention, he says - but that intention is "completely dependent on context. You may like Google Cloud VP explains why everyone from big businesses to start-ups can benefit from
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He notes that Workday has 20 years of context, covering more than 1.4
trillion transactions - all on a single data model and a single business process framework, so the company is, uniquely suited to make sense of how business decisions happen, and advise and act on behalf of its users towards the ends that they want to achieve. (Image credit: Getty Images) The rise of AI agents and other systems has led to much talk of a possible SaaSpocalypse
- a revolution in how software survives as an industry, and I ask Wessel how Workday can evolve to work with this. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Contact me
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He highlights the idea of the jagged frontier, noting that if you think about the kinds of work AI is suited to, it needs to deliver with predictability
but also precision in terms of outcome and reliability.

Trust and reliability have become vital for all users of AI services, and Wessel points out the problem of the lawful vs lawless agents, noting that while it is important to ground AI in context, so you can evaluate whether
its answer is correct, its also crucial to restrict the transactions, so AI can run to what is governed.

Fortunately, he says that the problem of creating lawful agents is "seminal
to what do we do", as Workday has a concept of inherited permissions, so that when you ask an agent to take action on your behalf, that agent can only do what you are able to do in the system - ensuring its work remains lawful.
What to read next Amazon Business tells us why AI could supercharge procurement like never before AI agents arent the end of SaaS theyre driving its next phase of growth The AI second brain: The future of knowledge work Work reinvention Overall, Wessel says Workday is uniquely positioned to perform, as what it delivers requires trust, reliability and enterprise context, and it has a robust and stable platform from which to grow, creating what he says is, an incredible opportunity to use AI to enter the automation of ancillary services that we never considered entering.

But with increased AI usage comes concern over job replacement, particularly in areas such as HR and business development where Workday is firmly entrenched.

Wessel notes that the aim is to have agents work alongside human workers to remove time-consuming or tedious tasks - highlighting the example of the Workday talent acquisition agent taking over the tasks of scheduling interviews for a recruitment team - not high-value or desired work, which can take huge amount of time, but somewhere Workday believes it can create meaningful savings, and meaningful opportunity for humans to focus on the important work.

"Work hasn't been reinvented in a way that as we get more efficient, we find less of it, he says, noting that we are still very much in the early stages
of realizing the workforce transformation that needs to happen.

This includes younger workers, or those just entering the workforce, who
often face challenges securing roles at companies looking to use AI to scale down their teams.

Wessel says that Workday often wants to find AI-native people entering the workforce, as they have a different way of thinking about problems, and advises all businesses to be more diverse in their hiring so as to acquire workers with different skills and knowledge - including AI natives.

The way you're thinking about these tools if you're just coming out of university now is completely different than if you graduated 15 years ago,
and every organization can use that as a superpower in driving change, he says.

In almost every technological revolution, there is job creation at the same time there is job destruction - and I don't think this will play out any differently, Wessel adds, over time, there's going to be jobs that do get automated completely and go away, and there's going to be a need for more capacity in other areas. (Image credit: Shutterstock) Ultimately, the company looks to help encourage the use of AI services and agents at work, with building an AI-native user experience that is easy to navigate and learn a vital part of that.

We have a big responsibility to help our customers transform the workforces inside and outside of workday, Wessel notes, highlighting Workdays recent acquisition of Sana as a good example of this.

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