Workday unveils triple-pronged capability updates

New AI-powered capabilities within the Workday platform will allow employers to better design work for AI, make workforce and financial decisions concurrently, and see less friction for job candidates.

At the annual customer and partner Workday Rising Conference, held on 12–15 October 2026, HR cloud application provider Workday revealed a host of new capabilities to ease the pressure of outdated processes.

The first of the new platforms, Work Intelligence, is proposed to make workflow smoother and more practical for the average employee. It works by breaking down jobs into manageable and real tasks and linking them to relevant skills collected from Skills Cloud’s data on more than 75,000 customer-employed skills.

On the back of the 2026 Workday Global Workforce Report, which found 76 per cent of frequent AI users anticipate it will create new career opportunities, Work Intelligence will help leaders harness the opportunity, both by getting additional value from the existing workforce and by facilitating strategic planning.

With the technology seemingly unquantifiable, Work Intelligence will help leaders actually measure the impact of AI on work and more clearly connect investment to business value.

Reflecting on the changing productivity landscape, Nikki Helmer, vice president, talent management and insights at Workday, said: “The basic building block of work is shifting from the job to the task – and without that view, most companies are left guessing whether to hire, build skills, automate or redesign roles, with no way to know which guess is right.”

“Work Intelligence gives leaders the data to thoroughly redesign roles, build careers, and help people grow into what’s next.”

Also available across their portfolios, Workday’s Decision Intelligence is an agentic HR analyst that models scenarios related to live, governed data to address hiring strategy and skills gaps.

With recommendations generated with consideration to existing approvals and audit trails, the capability will allow leaders to retain judgement and accountability within a single, governed AI experience. Teams will be able to question and receive answers related to live data, compare options, and execute decisions based on existing permissions.

Within the dynamic recruitment and employment landscape, the ability to use integrated and reliable data is immeasurable.

Workday’s Candidate Profile targets recruiters and jobseekers by streamlining application and review.

Addressing a stress point for jobseekers, the feature saves application details for reuse when applying for jobs at a Workday-employed company while also helping employers receive the best applications that may not have been submitted otherwise.

The Candidate Profile will see approximately 80 per cent of standard job application fields already completed and anticipated to make applying around 40 per cent faster while also fast-tracking job searchers broadly.

In this vein, employers will see a difference in hiring capabilities without needing to make sweeping changes to application processes.

Workday president of product and technology Gerrit Kazmaier said: “Filing out an application should be simple and seamless, and nobody should have to retype their resume every time they apply for a job. Workday Candidate Profile gives every job seeker a fast path when applying for their next role.”

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