Workday agreed to buy C1.ai, which controls what AI agents can access.
Workday announced the deal on 13 October at its Workday Rising conference in Las Vegas.
It disclosed no price and expects the deal to close in its fiscal fourth quarter, ending 31 January 2027, subject to the usual conditions.
Workday says C1.ai connects to systems including email, sales, finance and code, and gives each person and agent defined permissions. ITdaily reported that it also logs every action. For a finance team already giving agents access, that log is the useful part: permission to enter a system tells you little about what happened inside it.
Workday's announcement cites C1.ai research that 95% of large US companies already run AI agents, software that acts on its own, and separate Deloitte research in which only 21% report a mature way to govern them.
The acquisition's scale is harder to judge. Workday supplied no C1.ai revenue or customer count.
Sources
Our file on Workday
- 17 Oct
Workday's CEO saw ten layers between him and a developer. He cut 525 jobs.
- 16 Oct
Workday told analysts customers spend tens of millions on outsourcing. It wants that budget.
- 14 Oct
Workday unveiled four agents on autopilot. Customer Dow has not switched one on.
- 8 Oct
SAP agreed to buy HR startup TechWolf. Rivals Workday and ServiceNow had backed it.
- 6 Oct
Workday said demand for basic AI skills peaked in January. Then it fell 25%.
For your next steering committee
- 1Ask which AI tools already touch your ERP or finance data, including the ones nobody approved.
- 2Ask what each tool is allowed to change, and who reviews what it changed.
- 3Ask how the result is measured, and who decides to switch a tool off.
Issue 01 of the ERP LEADERS brief puts a timeline, the three-number review and six questions on one page. Read issue 01
Welcome back. · Issue 01
