At Workday Rising 2025, the HR and finance software giant unveiled what could be its biggest developer play yet: Workday Build, a new platform that lets customers and partners build, customize, and scale AI-powered apps and agents directly on Workday’s core data.
The pitch is simple: stop just using Workday AI, start building with it.
Breaking the Mold
Workday Build folds together the company’s AI toolset—including Illuminate and DevCon-announced products—into a unified developer platform. At its core is Workday Flowise Agent Builder, a low-code environment that allows even non-technical teams to spin up AI agents tuned to their business workflows.
As CTO Peter Bailis put it: “The era of one-size-fits-all enterprise software is over. With Workday Build, customers go from consuming AI to creating with it.”
That shift could be significant. While rivals like Oracle and SAP have been embedding AI agents across their platforms, Workday is handing customers a toolkit to create their own—with the guardrails of Workday’s security, compliance, and governance.
What’s Inside Workday Build
The new platform brings several key components together:
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Flowise Agent Builder: A low-code tool for creating conversational agents or complex workflows directly in Workday. Agents are context-aware, leveraging people and financial data.
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AI Developer Products & Tools: Includes a gen AI-powered Developer Copilot for coding efficiency and an Agent Gateway using MCP-compliant APIs to connect Workday agents with the company’s broader Agent System of Record.
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Workday Data Cloud: Provides zero-copy data access, letting customers connect Workday’s HR and finance data to external enterprise data platforms without duplication.
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Expanded Marketplace & Partner Programs: A broadened ecosystem of purpose-built solutions under programs like Built on Workday, Workday Wellness, Global Payroll Connect, and the Workday Agent Partner Network.
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Developer Community: A global network with certifications, training, and collaboration opportunities to expand the talent pool around Workday AI.
Why It Matters
The move highlights the next phase of enterprise AI adoption: customization. Instead of vendors shipping pre-packaged AI assistants, platforms like Workday are betting that customers want—and need—the ability to build their own, tied directly to their unique processes and datasets.
That flexibility could prove a differentiator as Workday competes with Oracle’s Fusion AI agents, SAP’s AI-augmented SuccessFactors, and Microsoft Copilot integrations. The combination of low-code accessibility, secure data integration, and a marketplace ecosystem could make Workday a go-to platform not just for HR and finance management, but for AI application development at scale.
If successful, Workday Build could transform Workday from a SaaS provider into a full-fledged enterprise AI platform.
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