Workday told analysts customers spend tens of millions on outsourcing. It wants that budget.

Workday chief AI officer Joel Hellermark told financial analysts that automating work such as HR tasks could take the company "beyond the software budgets into the labor and services spend." The Register reported his comments on 15 October. That, he said, is where "customers are spending tens of millions of dollars on outsourcing."

Chief executive Aneel Bhusri wants customers to pay for AI agents by consumption, with bills rising as use grows, the way cloud computing is billed. Workday has mostly priced its software per employee.

Hellermark said self-service AI agents had raised resolution rates for common tasks by 25 percent. The report gives no price per agent and names no customer on the new model.