Dive Brief:
- Google Cloud and Workday are broadening their partnership to embed HR and finance agents into employee workflows, the companies announced Thursday. The expanded agreement integrates Workday’s Sana self-service agent into Gemini Enterprise to allow agents from the two companies and third parties to find information and complete HR and finance work in one place.
- The integrations will allow employees to check time-off balances, view payslips, review tax information, inquire about expense and travel policies or check guidelines around corporate spending. The integrations also offer managers agent tools for reviewing team goals, approving timesheets and starting performance reviews.
- Both on the model layer and the platform layer, the Google and Workday collaboration will let teams automate some of the most common workflows in HR and finance departments, Karthik Narain, chief product and business officer at Google Cloud, said in a statement. “Employees can get faster, more accurate answers, streamline repetitive tasks, and ultimately focus on the work that matters most.”
Dive Insight:
The expanded partnership comes as AI providers are aiming to integrate more tools into enterprise companies’ workflows, break down data silos and save time on repetitive tasks.
ERP companies and the broader software market face what some call “the SaaSpocalypse,” as customers turn to AI and SaaS companies sell fewer licenses. Workday has experienced some of the blowback, losing more than 40% of its value in a year, shedding its CEO in February and laying off 2% of its workforce.
“We’re now entering one of the most pivotal moments in our history. AI is a bigger transformation than SaaS — and it will define the next generation of market leaders,” Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and current CEO said in an announcement Feb. 9.
Under an expanded partnership, Workday and Google Cloud are aiming to make agent work a seamless part of their platforms to hold onto customers.
Users of the platforms can now ask a question in Gemini Enterprise and get an answer pulled directly from Workday, the companies said. Gemini has also become the default AI model inside Sana for Workday, bringing customers a more consistent experience across both platforms. The partnership allows companies to take action on HR and finance work within Workday’s data security environment.
“Our customers want HR and finance at their fingertips, not scattered across a dozen applications,” said Gerrit Kazmaier, president of product and technology at Workday, in a statement.
Workday’s Sana agent is available on Google Cloud’s marketplace, and more agents from Workday are planned to be released later this year, the companies said.
The two companies recently introduced the Ignite Financial Close Companion for KPMG, an AI assistant designed to transform the month-end closing process for legal entity controllers and accounting analysts. They are also working with global system integrators Accenture and Deloitte on governance, technical and business processes as the partnership grows.
