Workday unveils Sana, an AI hub for HR, finance & apps

Workday has launched Sana, a conversational AI product built into its HR and finance software. It also connects to other workplace applications through a separate integration layer.

Workday positions Sana as a single interface for finding information, taking action, and setting up automated workflows across Workday and other systems used in day-to-day work.

Sana includes three components: Sana for Workday, the in-product interface; Sana Self-Service Agent, focused on HR and finance requests; and Sana Enterprise, an integration product that links Workday to other applications and content repositories.

Core functions

Sana is built around four functions Workday calls find, act, build, and automate. Find returns answers from Workday data and company knowledge sources, with citations. Act runs tasks across connected systems based on user permissions. Build generates dashboards, summaries, and documents. Automate sets up multi-step workflows without code.

Workday's examples include checking remaining holiday entitlement, updating an address and reflecting changes in tax forms and benefits, changing a customer contract value, and generating recruiting dashboards. Another example describes a monthly workflow that checks an email inbox for receipts, compares them with policy, and produces a report for approval.

Sana operates within Workday's existing security, permission, and audit framework, which Workday ties to accuracy and compliance controls for HR and finance data.

"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."

Workday interface

Sana for Workday is positioned as a unified conversational interface for Workday, aimed at CHROs, CFOs, managers, and employees who want a single place to ask questions and trigger workflows.

The Self-Service Agent launches with more than 300 skills, spanning areas such as pay, time, and absence. Workday says customers are already using it for everyday HR and finance tasks, and links that to fewer support tickets and a shift in HR teams toward other work.

"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."

Beyond Workday

Sana Enterprise extends the experience into third-party tools through connectors. The initial list includes Box, Confluence, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Google Drive, Google Tasks, Jira, Linear, Miro, Microsoft Outlook Calendar, Microsoft Outlook Email, Notion, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SharePoint, Slack, and Zoom. More connectors are planned later in the year.

Workday frames the product as a way to complete tasks across multiple applications through a single conversational interaction. Examples include finding and sharing documents from Google Drive or SharePoint, scheduling meetings in Outlook or Google Calendar, and reviewing Jira tickets while identifying blockers.

"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."

Pricing and access

Sana for Workday and the Sana Self-Service Agent are available through Workday Flex Credits and do not require an additional licence. Customers receive an allocation of Flex Credits as part of their subscription.

Sana Enterprise is available with Workday Human Capital Management or Workday Financial Management, and is also sold through Flex Credits.

Customer signals

Workday shared customer examples highlighting adoption claims and licence consolidation. Berner says Sana became its default AI interface within 40 days, reached 90% adoption, and replaced 400 ChatGPT licences.

Cheffelo describes Sana as a central point for work, knowledge, and background workflows. Telavox says it is shifting from automating individual tasks to redesigning processes around higher automation.

Industry analyst Josh Bersin describes the integration as a significant step in applying AI to HR and business workflows, including agent-based automation.

Orchestration and control

In a Q&A session, Kazmaier tied Workday's approach to the role HR and finance transactions play in broader workflows such as hiring and onboarding, and invoice processing. He also said Sana includes a knowledge database and an action layer designed to run tasks and track status through integrations, not just retrieve information.

He also addressed "shadow AI," describing an "agent system of record" that registers permitted agents and applies configuration by team, geography, and department. Kazmaier said Sana checks AI model usage against that record and allows or blocks access based on those settings.

"We believe that AI is almost comparable in many dimensions with knowledge workers or, you know, with workers. And hence we need to conceptualise how we manage and secure them in a similar way," said Kazmaier.