Introducing Sana from Workday: Superintelligence for Work That Finds Answers, Takes Action, and Automates Workflows
Rhea-AI Summary
Workday (NASDAQ: WDAY) on March 17, 2026 launched Sana from Workday, a conversational AI experience that finds answers, takes action, builds dashboards, and automates workflows across HR and finance.
The release notes 300+ self‑service skills, global availability, inclusion in Workday Flex Credits, and Sana Enterprise connectors to major apps so agents can complete work across systems.
Positive
- 300+ self‑service skills across HR and finance
- Available worldwide on March 17, 2026
- Sana Enterprise lists 18 integrations (Gmail, Outlook, Salesforce, SharePoint, etc.)
- Customer report: 90% adoption and retired 400 ChatGPT licenses within 40 days
Negative
- None.
Key Figures
Market Reality Check
Peers on Argus
WDAY was up 0.41% while peers were mixed: gains in ROP (+0.44%), DDOG (+0.65%), PAYX (+0.46%) contrasted with declines in ADSK (-0.92%) and SNOW (-3.32%). This pattern points to a stock-specific reaction to the Sana announcement rather than a broad sector move.
Historical Context
| Date | Event | Sentiment | Move | Catalyst |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 12 | AI platform win | Positive | -0.8% | Fairview Health Services chose Workday’s AI-powered HR, finance, and supply chain suite. |
| Feb 26 | Partnership launch | Positive | +4.5% | General availability of Insperity HRScale combining Insperity services with Workday HCM. |
| Feb 24 | Earnings results | Positive | +2.2% | Reported FY26 revenue growth, higher margins, strong cash flow, and FY27 guidance. |
| Feb 09 | CEO transition | Negative | -5.1% | Co-founder Aneel Bhusri returned as CEO; prior outlooks reaffirmed with margin caveat. |
| Feb 03 | Product introduction | Positive | -7.0% | Launch of Military Skills Mapper to translate military experience into civilian-equivalent skills. |
Product/AI news has produced mixed reactions, with some positive AI/partnership headlines selling off while others rallied.
Over the last few months, Workday has combined product innovation, AI expansion, and leadership changes. An AI-powered platform win at Fairview Health Services on Mar 12, 2026 saw a modest share decline, while the Insperity HRScale partnership on Feb 26, 2026 coincided with a 4.48% gain. Strong fiscal 2026 results on Feb 24, 2026 also led to a positive move. In contrast, the CEO transition and the Military Skills Mapper product launch drew negative reactions. Today’s broad AI agent launch fits the ongoing pivot toward embedded AI across HR and finance workflows.
Market Pulse Summary
This announcement showcases Workday’s push to make Sana from Workday a central AI layer across HR, finance, and connected apps. With the Sana Self‑Service Agent offering 300+ skills and customer examples like 90% adoption within 40 days at Berner, the company is emphasizing embedded, action‑oriented AI rather than standalone copilots. In context of recent AI-focused wins and product launches, key metrics to watch include breadth of enterprise deployments, workflow automation rates, and how Sana usage scales across Workday’s installed base.
Key Terms
conversational ai technical
ai agents technical
no-code technical
workflows technical
AI-generated analysis. Not financial advice.
Sana for Workday Brings a New Conversational AI Experience to Workday
New Sana Self‑Service Agent Launches With 300+ Skills, and It Is Already Handling Everyday HR and Finance Tasks for Customers Worldwide
Sana Enterprise Connects Workday with Apps Like Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Salesforce, and SharePoint to Complete Work Across Systems
Today, many organizations fail to realize the impact of their AI investments because their agents, copilots, and other AI tools are spread across disconnected systems and outside the workflows that actually run the business. These bolted on AI tools often fail to deliver enterprise-grade accuracy because they don't share the same data, compliance context, and business rules as the core systems they operate on.
Sana from Workday changes that. Instead of sitting on the side, Sana brings AI into the core systems and processes that run the business. It doesn't just surface information – it completes HR and finance tasks using the same security model, configuration, and policies companies already rely on, so answers and actions are grounded in the right data and rules. Because Sana runs inside Workday's existing security, permissions, and audit framework, agents inherit the same controls customers trust for sensitive HR and finance data, enabling truly enterprise‑grade results.
"AI only works in the enterprise when it's connected to trusted, deterministic systems, and that hybrid architecture is exactly what Workday is building," said Aneel Bhusri, co-founder, CEO and chair, Workday. "Sana is what brings it all together. It's not just a new Workday experience – it's a powerful way for people to search, reason, and orchestrate work across the enterprise."
AI Agents Grounded in Workday's People and Finance Data
Unlike standalone assistants or copilots that primarily provide suggestions, Sana from Workday orchestrates AI agents that take action across systems. It brings together four core capabilities:
- Find: Gives instant, cited answers from company knowledge and Workday data. For example, an employee can ask, "How many vacation days do I have left?" or "What's the current contract value of Acme Inc.?" and get a clear answer in seconds.
- Act: Executes tasks across connected systems, grounded in enterprise permissions. For example, an employee can ask, "Update my home address and show how this affects my tax forms and benefits" or "Update the Acme Inc. contract value to
$431 K - Build: Turns knowledge into ready‑to‑use dashboards, summaries, and documents. For example, a manager can ask, "Generate a dashboard showing pipeline stage and interview feedback from Workday Recruiting."
- Automate: Sets up no-code, multi‑step workflows so agents can run work behind the scenes. For example, an employee can ask, "Set up a monthly workflow to review my email inbox for receipts, check them against policy, and send me a report to approve before submitting."
"Most AI projects today live in pilots and browser tabs – they look impressive in demos, but they don't change how work actually gets done," said Gerrit Kazmaier, president, product & technology, Workday. "With Sana from Workday, we're delivering a new way to get work done – where AI agents take action using trusted context, not just provide suggestions. Sana from Workday will be the last software you have to learn – a single experience where AI is embedded directly in the flow of work."
A New AI-First Experience for Workday
Sana for Workday is the new unified AI interface for Workday, giving CHROs, CFOs, managers, and employees a single place to ask questions, trigger workflows, and work with Workday agents. It becomes the new way employees use Workday – replacing traditional menus and navigation with a transformative conversational AI experience.
Workday customers now have access to the Sana Self‑Service Agent, which instantly finds and summarizes information from Workday and other knowledge sources, so employees get clear, personalized answers to their questions right away. The agent understands who the user is and what they're trying to do and can assist with tasks or handle everyday actions on their behalf. With 300+ skills across areas like pay, time, and absence, the Sana Self‑Service Agent is already handling everyday HR and finance tasks for customers worldwide – reducing support tickets and freeing HR and finance teams to focus on higher‑value work.
Sana for Workday and the Sana Self-Service Agent are now available to all Workday customers through Workday Flex Credits – no extra license, no separate paywall. Customers receive an allocation of Flex Credits as part of their Workday subscription, so they can start using Sana for Workday and the Self-Service Agent now.
Sana Enterprise Extends the Power of Workday to the Tools People Already Use
Workday also launched Sana Enterprise, which extends the Sana experience beyond Workday into the rest of the enterprise, with connectors for Box, Confluence, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Google Drive, Google Tasks, Jira, Linear, Microsoft Outlook Calendar, Microsoft Outlook Email, Miro, Notion, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SharePoint, Slack, and Zoom – with more planned for later this year.
With these integrations, employees can complete work across multiple systems in a single conversation instead of searching through each application. For example, employees can find the latest version of a document in Google Drive or SharePoint and share it with their team; check availability and schedule meetings in Outlook or Google Calendar; or review Jira tickets for a project and identify potential blockers – all through Sana Enterprise.
"Sana is the closest thing we have to a superintelligent co‑worker. It sees the full picture of your organization in Workday, it knows which systems to touch, and it can coordinate the steps between them," said Joel Hellermark, senior vice president and general manager of AI, Workday. "Instead of dozens of tickets and handoffs, you ask for an outcome and Sana delivers it."
What People are Saying
"Within 40 days, Sana became our default AI interface at work – we reached
"At Cheffelo, Sana has gone from an AI experiment to our AI backbone – the place where work starts, knowledge lives, and agentic workflows run in the background so our teams can focus on strategic decisions and customers," said Anton Nytorp, CTO, Cheffelo.
"We've gone from 'Can we automate this one task?' to 'How should this entire process work if we assume Sana can handle
"Workday's integration with Sana is a major milestone in the market, giving HR and business users a highly intelligent, AI-native experience to automate work, solve problems, and build agentic solutions," said Josh Bersin, global industry analyst and CEO of The Josh Bersin Company. "We see Sana as a leader in this space and the decision to build Sana into the Workday experience will transform Workday's business and the entire customer and employee experience."
Availability
Sana for Workday and the Sana Self-Service Agent are now available to Workday customers through Workday Flex Credits. Sana Enterprise is now available with Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) or Workday Financial Management and through Workday Flex Credits.
For More Information
- Learn more about Sana from Workday and how its superintelligence for work puts AI agents to work across the enterprise here.
- Read the blog to discover how Workday employees are using Sana from Workday in their day‑to‑day work.
About Workday
Workday is the enterprise AI platform for managing people, money, and agents. Workday unifies HR and Finance on one intelligent platform with AI at the core to empower people at every level with the clarity, confidence, and insights they need to adapt quickly, make better decisions, and deliver outcomes that matter. Workday is used by more than 11,500 organizations around the world and across industries – from medium-sized businesses to more than
© 2026 Workday, Inc. All rights reserved. Workday and the Workday logo are trademarks of Workday, Inc. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding Workday's plans, beliefs, and expectations. These forward-looking statements are based only on currently available information and our current beliefs, expectations, and assumptions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. If the risks materialize, assumptions prove incorrect, or we experience unexpected changes in circumstances, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements, and therefore you should not rely on any forward-looking statements. Risks include, but are not limited to, risks described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including our most recent report on Form 10-Q or Form 10-K and other reports that we have filed and will file with the SEC from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. Workday assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release, except as required by law.
Any unreleased services, features, or functions referenced in this document, our website, or other press releases or public statements that are not currently available are subject to change at Workday's discretion and may not be delivered as planned or at all. Customers who purchase Workday services should make their purchase decisions based upon services, features, and functions that are currently available.
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SOURCE Workday, Inc.
FAQ
What is Sana from Workday (WDAY) and when did it become available?
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