From HR platform to enterprise automation hub

Workday hasn't just been an HR tool for a long time. With more than 11,500 customers worldwide — including over 65% of Fortune 500 companies — it has become the backbone of corporate operations for HR, finance, and now IT. And with the acquisition of Swedish AI startup Sana Labs for $1.1 billion in September 2025, Workday sent a clear message: agentic AI won't be just an add-on, but a foundational layer of enterprise software.

The Sana platform was launched for all customers in March 2026 and consists of three products: Sana for Workday (a conversational interface replacing traditional menus), Sana Self-Service Agent (over 300 pre-built skills for HR and finance), and Sana Enterprise (integration with external tools like Gmail, Slack, Salesforce, Jira, and others). Yesterday's announcement adds a fourth and fifth pillar.

Sana for ITSM: When IT support doesn't rely on tickets

The key innovation is Sana for IT Service Management — an agent that automates employee IT support across the entire lifecycle: from onboarding through role changes to offboarding. In practice, this means:

• Common requests like password resets, software installation, or access rights changes are handled conversationally directly within the Workday interface.
• New employee onboarding automatically triggers access provisioning across identity, security, and collaboration tools.
• More complex requests are routed to the right team with full context — who is requesting, what permissions they have, who approves.

Joel Hellermark, Chief AI Officer at Workday, summed it up clearly at the summit: „IT teams don't wake up wanting to close more tickets. They want fewer tickets and cleaner operations.“ According to Gartner, by 2028, 33% of organizations will be using agentic AI in ITSM. Workday isn't waiting for this prediction — it's offering the solution today.

Travel Agent: The end of manual travel expense reporting

The second innovation targets the painful reality of corporate travel. Workday processes over 5 million expense reports monthly. But booking flights and hotels has historically happened in separate systems, meaning double work for employees and delayed visibility for finance departments.

Travel Agent combines both parts into a single conversational experience:

• The employee plans the trip, checks the budget, books the flight and hotel — all in compliance with company policy.
• Once the trip is approved, expenses are automatically generated in Workday Expenses.
• The finance team gets real-time visibility — not weeks later when the employee submits the travel report.

Max Wessel, SVP of Product at Workday, put it aptly: „The best expense report is the one you never have to do.“

Why it works: Context, policies, data

What sets Workday apart from generic AI assistants is deep integration into corporate data. Sana for ITSM and Travel Agent run directly on the Workday platform, which means:

• They already know the organizational structure, approval chains, and company policies.
• They inherit the existing security model, access rights, and audit trail.
• Every agent action goes through the same compliance check as a standard transaction in HR or finance.

This is a fundamental difference compared to universal tools like Microsoft Copilot or the freely available ChatGPT. While these can answer a question, they cannot directly make a change in the payroll system or approve access rights — because they don't run inside the system that holds the data, policies, and permissions.

Consulting firm McKinsey defines four prerequisites for successfully deploying agentic AI in ITSM: an accurate CMDB (configuration management database), APIs with built-in policy controls, a governance model defining what the agent can and cannot do, and active monitoring of inference costs. For existing Workday customers, three of these four conditions are met automatically.

Real-world results: 90% adoption in 40 days

Early deployments show this isn't just marketing claims. Consumer products company Berner achieved 90% adoption of the Sana platform within 40 days while simultaneously canceling 400 ChatGPT licenses. Employees had been using general AI tools as a substitute for gaps in HR systems. Sana brought this activity back under corporate governance with full compliance control.

Communications company Telavox, which tested the platform in its early stages, saw an impact that went beyond individual tasks — teams began redesigning entire processes based on what the agent could handle and what needed human approval.

The competition isn't sleeping: SAP Joule and ServiceNow

Workday isn't alone in the agentic automation space. SAP offers the Joule assistant with five specialized agents for SuccessFactors (more coming throughout May 2026). ServiceNow recently completed its acquisition of the Moveworks platform, a direct competitor to Sana, and continues to expand its Now Assist platform.

For IT buyers in the second half of 2026, a key question emerges: deploy a specialized ITSM solution from ServiceNow, or leverage a platform that already knows every employee, their role, access rights, and approval chains? Workday has decided to compete on both fronts.

What does this mean for Czech companies?

Workday is known on the Czech market primarily among larger corporations and multinational companies operating in the Czech Republic. The Sana platform supports Czech within its conversational interface, which is essential for local teams. Pricing is based on so-called Flex Credits — a credit system that customers use to purchase individual modules and agents. The agents themselves (Self-Service Agent, Sana for ITSM, Travel Agent) do not require additional license fees beyond the existing Workday HCM or Financial Management subscription.

For Czech HR and IT directors, the message is clear: if your company already runs on Workday, the transition to agentic automation is more of an evolutionary step than a disruptive one. The agents use data already in the system and comply with policies already in place.

Availability

Sana for ITSM will be available to first customers in the second half of 2026, with general availability planned by the end of the year. Travel Agent is already available to early adopter customers and is also heading toward broad rollout by the end of 2026.