Workday opens Decision Intelligence to HCM and Financial Management customers
Workday's Ben Pierce says customers run thousands of scenarios in Decision Intelligence, now open to HCM and Financial Management users. The iTWire interview text available does not say how Flex Credits price that modelling.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
Decision Intelligence, from Adaptive, now reaches HCM and Financial Management customers; planning teams model scenarios and commit them to Adaptive. Pierce says most companies model one, two or three scenarios, a plan of record needs Adaptive, and analyst impact is a company decision.
- What's now possible capability HCM, Financial Mgmt customers Decision Intelligence, which started life in Adaptive, is now available to them, claim 1
- What's now possible capability Planning and analysis teams Pull in data, model it, run scenarios and commit back to Adaptive as the plan of record, claim 3
- What it limits constraint Companies modelling scenarios Pierce says most model one, two or three scenarios and have not pressure tested enough, claim 12
- What it costs cost Separate Adaptive licence Pierce argues it is not less necessary: you need a plan of record to commit to and judge how you did, claim 5
- Who has to decide decision Analysts Pierce: "It may be both", fewer analysts in some places, more output in others; a company decision, claim 8
| Who | How | Kind | Claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| HCM, Financial Mgmt customers | Decision Intelligence, which started life in Adaptive, is now available to them | capability | 1 |
| Planning and analysis teams | Pull in data, model it, run scenarios and commit back to Adaptive as the plan of record | capability | 3 |
| Companies modelling scenarios | Pierce says most model one, two or three scenarios and have not pressure tested enough | constraint | 12 |
| Separate Adaptive licence | Pierce argues it is not less necessary: you need a plan of record to commit to and judge how you did | cost | 5 |
| Analysts | Pierce: "It may be both", fewer analysts in some places, more output in others; a company decision | decision | 8 |
What happened
- Pierce says most companies model only one, two or three scenarios, which he argues leaves them under-tested.
- Workday's Yasmeen Ahmad said in the keynote that a CFO's revenue scenario, normally six weeks, five spreadsheets and an analyst, took one prompt.
- Asked what happens to the analysts, Pierce said "It may be both" and called it a company decision.
Why it matters
- Who has to decide decision Finance teams weighing an Adaptive licence have only Pierce's answer that a plan of record needs one, and it comes from the unit that sells Adaptive.
- Who's exposed exposure Pierce left analyst headcount to the customer, so finance and HR leaders own the staffing consequence of faster scenario work.
- What doesn't add up contradiction The keynote showed a single 42-hire figure while Pierce describes probability ranges. Which one users get by default is still an open question.
The case for putting Decision Intelligence inside HCM and Financial Management starts with a habit Ben Pierce, who runs Adaptive as a business unit at Workday, says he sees everywhere [9]. Speaking to iTWire at Workday Rising 2026 in Las Vegas [11], he said every user of every planning system ends up exporting to Excel, for two reasons: "the planning system is not flexible enough," and it "doesn't have enough detail." [2] The two things a good planning system needs, he said, are workforce data and financial data. Workday has both, so "it just made sense to create this as something native that would work across all Workday products as well." [4]
The workflow sets a sequence. Teams pull in data, model it, run scenarios and then "commit that back to Adaptive as the plan of record," according to Pierce [3]. Once the modelling lives in HCM and Financial Management, though, the case for a separate Adaptive licence could look thinner. Pierce argued the opposite: "Once you come up with all these great ideas, where are you going to store them? You need to have a plan of record that you can ultimately commit to, so that you can judge how well you did and get better over time." [5] That answer comes from the unit that sells Adaptive.
The product claim is strongest on scenario volume. Pierce said most companies model only one, two or three scenarios: "If you only come up with a few scenarios, how can you be sure that one of them is going to work? You haven't pressure tested it enough." [12] Customers, he said, are "running Monte Carlo simulations across thousands of scenarios that give them a probability distribution and some confidence that they're going to land somewhere in a range that's acceptable to them." [13] The iTWire interviewer noted that the keynote demo showed a single figure of 42 hires that looked certain, and wrote that a range with probabilities is "much more honest." [6]
The interview's headline lists Flex Credits among its topics [10], but the text available ends mid-answer on analyst staffing, before any discussion of how credits apply. That leaves three pricing questions open: whether scenario runs, prompts or something else draw down credits, at what rate, and whether Decision Intelligence is consumption-priced at all. If it is, the jump from three scenarios to thousands is the variable a usage meter would act on.
On staffing, Yasmeen Ahmad, Workday's senior vice president and general manager of Data Cloud, said in the keynote that the CFO's revenue scenario would normally take "six weeks, five spreadsheets, and an analyst," and took one prompt [7]. Asked what happens to those analysts, Pierce said "It may be both," meaning fewer analysts in some places and more output in others. "It's where culture meets software, and it's a company decision," he said. [8]
In our view, the decision this quarter is how much scenario volume to authorise without a published credit rate. Next quarter's decision is what to do with any analyst time that frees up. Workday has left the second to the customer, and the first cannot be sized from this interview.
What to watch
- Whether Workday publishes a Flex Credit rate for Decision Intelligence scenario runs, and whether Monte Carlo runs draw on it.
- Whether customers adopting Decision Intelligence in HCM or Financial Management keep their Adaptive licences as the plan of record.
- Whether any customer discloses analyst headcount or hours changes after moving scenario work into Decision Intelligence.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence30
- Adoption20
- Hype gap+25
- Incentives70
- Confidence45
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Decision Intelligence started life in Adaptive and is now available to Workday HCM and Workday Financial Management customers.
- [2]
Pierce said Decision Intelligence was built to fix a universal problem: every user of every planning system ends up exporting to Excel, he said, for two reasons: "the planning system is not flexible enough," and it "doesn't have enough detail."
- [3]
Decision Intelligence lets financial planning and analysis teams pull in whatever data they need, model it, run different scenarios and then "commit that back to Adaptive as the plan of record."
- [4]
Pierce said the two things any good planning system needs are access to workforce data and access to financial data; Workday has both, so "it just made sense to create this as something native that would work across all Workday products as well."
- [5]
Asked whether Decision Intelligence makes a separate Adaptive licence less necessary, Pierce argued the opposite: "Once you come up with all these great ideas, where are you going to store them? You need to have a plan of record that you can ultimately commit to, so that you can judge how well you did and get better over time."
- [6]
The iTWire interviewer wrote that the keynote demo's tidy figure of 42 hires looked certain, and that a range with probabilities attached is much more honest.
- [7]
Workday Senior Vice President and General Manager, Data Cloud, Yasmeen Ahmad, said in the keynote that the CFO's revenue scenario would normally take "six weeks, five spreadsheets, and an analyst," and took one prompt.
- [8]
Asked what happens to analysts, Pierce said "It may be both," meaning fewer analysts in some places and more output in others. "It's where culture meets software, and it's a company decision."
- [9]
Pierce, who joined Workday in 2016, now runs Adaptive as a business unit.
- [10]
The interview's headline names Flex Credits alongside Decision Intelligence and thousands of scenarios.
- [11]
The interview took place at Workday Rising 2026 in Las Vegas.
- [12]
Pierce said most companies only ever model one, two or three scenarios: "If you only come up with a few scenarios, how can you be sure that one of them is going to work? You haven't pressure tested it enough," he said.
- [13]
Pierce said customers are "running Monte Carlo simulations across thousands of scenarios that give them a probability distribution and some confidence that they're going to land somewhere in a range that's acceptable to them."
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