Blog: HR at the Pivot Point: Keith and Demetrio’s Takeaways from Workday Rising and HR Tech

If you have followed me for a while, you know I love talking about the practical side of Workday and the people side of change. This past month delivered both, in stereo. Demetrio Wazar-Santana and I compared notes from two big events, Workday Rising and HR Tech, and the themes were clear: AI is everywhere, HR sits at the center of the change, and Workday shipped a few quietly transformational features that deserve your attention now.

HR’s moment to lead

At HR Tech, Demetrio kept hearing a healthy refrain: people are the core of every transformation. Tools matter, people win. HR is in a unique position to create trust, lower fear, and build the skills that help teams adopt AI. That looks like real enablement, not a one pager. Run experiments, create space to learn, celebrate wins, and capture what works. I loved Workday’s internal idea of “prompt-athons,” group sessions where Workday staff practice real prompts on real scenarios, then share the results. Try it. It is a safe and energizing way to shift mindsets and build AI capabilities in your teams or company.

Specific comments from Workday Rising

• Hubs. Think curated left-nav for real work. Supplier Hub, Manager Hub, System Admin Hub, and more. No more guessing if the task is “maintain,” “edit,” or “manage.” Security carries through, so a lot of value is available with zero config. Add the hubs you have access to using the “Add” button at the bottom of the menu option. 
• Ask Workday. The rebranded Workday Assistant ties your policy docs to what Workday already knows about a person (coming 2026R1). A demo at Workday Rising showed a leave scenario, but the pattern matters more than the example. Users speak or type, the assistant asks for context, proposes the next step, and moves the process forward. Treat this like a new frontline for employee questions. Pair it with that “human handoff” path, and track what questions spike.
• Orchestration is now GA. This is the quiet game-changer. If you have been living in Core Connectors, EIBs, and Studio, add Orchestration training to your team’s plan. It makes lightweight, API-first connections part of everyday Workday work. One of my favorite stories was a non-developer Workday admin who built useful orchestrations after a bit of training. Start small, take the win, then scale.
  
  

Agents that review work, not replace it

Two early agent patterns stood out (coming in the future). A Business Process Reviewer agent who can watch cycle times and BP step counts, then suggest ways to streamline the process. And a Financial test suite idea that moves beyond anomaly detection sampling toward continuous, context-aware monitoring. Think duplicate invoice detection, confidence scoring for overpayments or unauthorized spend, and early warnings when customer payments slow down. The promise is proactive finance, not year-end surprises.

Bottom line

AI will not magically fix broken processes. HR and IT together will. Start with trust, enablement, and governance. Turn on what saves you time right now, like Hubs and Orchestration. Pilot the conversational and agent features where the employee or finance experience will clearly improve. Ship value, learn fast, repeat.

🎧 Listen to the full episode here