Workday Opens Its HR and Finance Data to Claude, Gemini and Copilot as Outside AI Agents Threaten Software's Front Door

Workday (WDAY) said on Tuesday, Oct. 13, that it will bring its Sana AI agents into Claude, Google's Gemini Enterprise, Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Teams and Slack, so employees can use HR and finance data without opening Workday. The move comes as The Information reports that some Workday customers already use outside AI agents to reach and analyze company data without logging in, a trend that raises a hard question for application vendors including Salesforce (CRM) and ServiceNow (NOW): what happens when the AI assistant, not the software, becomes the interface. Workday shares were down about 0.7% to $186.92 at the time Benzinga published.

The threat: AI as the new front door

According to The Information, as relayed by secondary coverage, some Workday customers use agents built by outside providers to read and analyze company data without opening Workday. That would reduce user engagement with the product and demand for Workday's own AI tools. Crypto Briefing reported that agents built on Claude and on Microsoft's Copilot Studio can query Workday data directly, and that Workday had more than 5,500 customers using its AI agents as of the second quarter, with AI products contributing close to $600 million in annual recurring revenue. We could not read The Information's original report, so treat those details as secondhand.

The larger worry is competitive. OpenAI and Anthropic are pushing further into enterprise workflows, which could weaken established vendors' control over how employees interact with software and over pricing. In the bearish version, platforms such as Workday, Salesforce and ServiceNow become back-end databases that AI providers draw from.

Workday's response: be where the agents are

Workday's answer is Sana, which it describes as an agentic orchestration layer that works inside third-party AI tools. Employees describe an outcome in plain language, and Sana checks company rules and routes the work to the right Workday agents. Workday says outside tools do not get direct access to its data. Requests go through Sana, which applies each company's permissions, approvals and policies and keeps an audit trail.

Workday also signed a definitive agreement to buy C1.ai, which manages identity and system access for employees and AI agents, per Benzinga. Terms were not disclosed, and the deal is expected to close in Workday's fiscal fourth quarter, which ends Jan. 31, 2027. Workday said more than 11,500 organizations use its software, including more than 65% of the Fortune 500.

What it means for Salesforce and ServiceNow

Neither company was named in Tuesday's announcements, and we have no fresh price moves for them. The read-through is strategic. Enterprise software stocks sold off earlier this year on fears that AI would erode vendors' margins, and ServiceNow has been using acquisitions to answer that fear. We reported this afternoon that it is in early talks with AI support startup Decagon (read it here), following its $7.75 billion deal for security firm Armis. Salesforce, which sells agent products of its own, faces the same question Workday does: whether customers reach its data through its own interface or through someone else's assistant.

The return on AI spending is real but uneven

A new Wharton Human-AI Research study with GBK Collective, released Oct. 13 and based on 1,416 U.S. enterprise leaders and employees, found that 80% of leaders report positive AI returns but only 28% describe them as strongly positive. How a department measures success matters:

For software vendors, the adoption gap cuts both ways. Few organizations let agents act on their own, which supports Workday's pitch that permissions, approvals and audit trails still matter. But usage of agents is already broad, which is the channel through which outside assistants could sit between employees and the software.