Person
Founder of Sana and chief AI officer at Workday.
Workday told Rising 2026 attendees its new AI agents are autopilots that work on their own, iTWire reported. Executives also insisted humans stay "in the loop", so the open question for a buyer is what that oversight covers task by task.
Reality
Workday's Joel Hellermark says its agents pair reasoning models with deterministic guardrails, itwire reported. Sana, bought for US$1.1 billion, now orchestrates every Workday agent, so the model-driven half of that split runs in one acquired product.
Reality
Workday has put Recruiting, HiredScore, Paradox, messaging and candidate engagement under one general manager, Adam Godson. He says recruiters must now "really recruit", yet the results he cited measure scheduling and speed.
Reality
Workday said at Workday Rising that Sana, its agentic experience, is becoming the new Workday Home, with Sana Concierge to resolve HR and IT requests. Employees will work with Sana directly. That puts an agent ahead of the HR or IT team on routine requests.
Reality
Workday gave TypeSafe's Jev every atomic component in its design system and lets the model pick what Sana shows, said chief AI officer Joel Hellermark. TypeSafe claims 70 to 500 milliseconds per answer; whether Workday sees that depends on how many screens reduce to closed questions.
Reality