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Thousands of staff members, customers and leaders for the city of Pleasanton’s top employer descended upon downtown San Francisco last week for the largest Workday Rising conference yet.
Workday Rising returned to the Bay Area this year after taking place in Las Vegas last year, with dozens of panels and speakers focused on the future of AI in the workplace pointing toward an optimistic outlook amid growing concerns about automation and the job market.
For their part, Workday leaders and conference attendees had plenty to be optimistic about during the four-day event from Sept. 15-18 during which more than 30,000 people took over multiple blocks and venues in the heart of downtown San Francisco.
Specifically, the conference was the site of a half-dozen announcements at a keynote event Sept. 16, consisting of new developments in its AI agent capabilities and offerings in partnership with other organizations, as well as Workday’s acquisition of the Swedish AI company Sana.Â
“Our focus has always been on creating intuitive AI tools that improve how people learn and work,” Sana CEO Joel Hellermark said in last week’s announcement. “I’m excited to bring these tools to 75 million Workday users and partner with Workday’s iconic team to launch a new era of superintelligence for work.”
Under the $1.1 billion deal, expected to close at the end of the company’s fourth quarter, Workday will acquire all outstanding shares of Sana. The hefty price tag is well worth it, according to Workday leadership, given the company’s status at “the forefront of AI for work,” its existing one million-plus users and the potential to use its existing technology to accelerate Workday’s goals.
“Sana’s team, AI-native approach, and beautiful design perfectly align with our vision to reimagine the future of work,” said Gerrit Kazmaier, Workday’s president of product and technology. “This will make Workday the new front door for work, delivering a proactive, personalized, and intelligent experience that unlocks unmatched AI capabilities for the workplace.”
Among the other major announcements on the AI agent front – and a major theme of the event – is the expansion of AI agents for HR and finance under Workday’s Illuminate AI. The new agents, set to debut in 2026, will be capable of complex tasks such as performance reviews, financial close, and workforce planning, according to Workday officials.
“Too many AI efforts amount to random acts of automation that never scale or deliver real value,” Kazmaier said. “The barrier of self-building AI on legacy systems and closed platforms is simply too high.”
“Workday Illuminate is different,” he continued. “With purpose-built AI agents and a single, open enterprise platform, we’re redefining ERP for the AI era – transforming it from a passive system of record into a system of action that drives real outcomes.”
The optimistic tone of last week’s conference came amid an atmosphere of growing skepticism and trepidation regarding AI and the workplace in recent months, in downtown San Francisco and beyond, including the Tri-Valley.
Over the summer, scenes from downtown San Francisco went viral amid a marketing campaign from Artisan with the slogan “Stop Hiring Humans” – just one of many campaigns from the Bay Area’s numerous AI companies that have, intentionally or not, exacerbated fears and anxieties for many on the internet and on the ground.
Meanwhile, hundreds of workers throughout the region and in the Tri-Valley – including at Workday itself, which cut 617 employees earlier this year – have been impacted by waves of layoff notices in recent months.
News about those workforce cuts have often come amid announcements of new developments in AI agent technology and the increased proliferation of the technology, fueling a narrative that AI is replacing human workers – particularly for those impacted by layoffs who struggle to find new positions.
Nonetheless, Workday officials have been adamant throughout those announcements and at last week’s conference that their vision for the future is not one in which AI replaces workers, but instead helps them maximize their potential. In doing so, the goal is in turn to maximize the return on investment for employers, just 5% of whom had seen a return on investment from skyrocketing spending on the technology last year, according to an MIT study that was referenced by multiple speakers at Workday Rising.
Among the Workday leaders most hopeful about using AI to develop human potential is the Workday Foundation’s chief philanthropy officer and self-described “eternal optimist” Carrie Varoquiers.
“I think that there will be disruption,” Varoquiers said in an interview with the Pleasanton Weekly. “I think it would be naive to say, oh no, nothing’s going to change. But that change could be super positive for a lot of people. I do think that there is the messy middle, which we are in right now, where everyone’s like ‘I don’t know what’s gonna happen, and so I’m a little bit concerned,’ and so we need to show people examples.”
Varoquiers pointed to research showing that AI can accelerate learning for some critically in-demand jobs. Specifically, she said one study had found that with the use of AI, students were capable of completing ultrasound technician training that typically takes 18 months in the course of one day.
“I think that we need to remain cognizant of the fact that we are driving the bus – we are not passengers in the bus of our life,” Varoquiers said. “We can take control and decide that we want to expand our skill set or switch careers, and we can do so successfully.”
Varoquiers said that with this in mind, the foundation is working on a video series that seeks to provide concrete examples of people who have successfully “upskilled” into new jobs, “and shine a light on the positive stories of people that are more satisfied than they were before”. Filming is set to start in November.
The video series is set to be part of an ongoing set of initiatives, Varoquiers said, that seek to spread the word about the “upskilling” concept – the subject of a Netflix documentary released earlier this year, on which she served as executive producer. That concept is also at the heart of the foundation’s ongoing Workforce Week, in partnership with Year Up United.
“I see it as a total positive,” Varoquiers said. “Jobs are going to shift. My job has totally shifted from when I started out in this field. Technology is a big part of that. Grants management systems didn’t exist. When I started, we were keeping files. And so I think we have to just realize that technology is an enabling tool when its helpful.”
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