Generative AI will drastically change not only financial and human resources management, but our entire lives. That’s the vision Workday is presenting at its Rising conference. “We’ll look back at life before and after AI later.”

Anyone who walked into the opening statement room Wednesday morning may have thought he or she was mistakenly attending a Daft Punk gig instead of a Workday conference. Dancers in robot costumes give their best in an elegant choreography supported by electronic beats and a light show. The futuristic decor fits perfectly with the central theme of Workday Rising EMEA: a look into the future.

Workday’s vision for the future of work and life is quickly becoming clear. “Today we are witnessing an explosion of new AI applications. “Artificial intelligence is the most important technological development since the introduction of the cloud,” he says Head of Marketing Emma Chalvin. Co-President Sayan Chakraborty goes one step further in the next lecture and compares AI to the iPhone or even the discovery of electricity. “We’ll look back at life before and after AI later.”

Born in the cloud

Anyone who, like us, has already visited many technology trade fairs in 2023 has already heard several times that AI and especially the generative type will have a major influence. Workday is far from the only technology company working on (generative) AI. The company recognizes this too, although Workday believes it has secured a good pole position in the emerging race.

“AI is at the heart of our platform because Workday was born in the cloud,” says Dorien Roes, Country Manager for Workday in Belgium, when we speak to her a week before the conference begins. “This means we can offer all of our customers a data source that contains a lot of data and automatically bring new developments to the customer. Every customer receives the same version of the platform. The customer decides for himself which functionalities he wants to use and which not.” She is supported by Chalwin. “We view AI as any other capability and have been working on it for more than a decade. It’s something the customer just has to turn on.”

Chakraborty dampens the increasing euphoria in the audience with an important warning. “Many modern AI models are trained on databases available over the Internet. This can lead to unpredictable results; Because AI reflects not only the good but also the bad of the Internet. Current measures are not having sufficient impact to address this problem.”

Fortunately, things calm down soon. Chakraborty: “Our job is to ensure that people are exposed only to the truth. At Workday, we set the highest standards for data quality. People are at the heart of our software, so there is simply no room for hallucinations based on bad data. We have been preparing for this moment for years: We are ready for it.” The AI ​​party can go on again.

AI reflects not only the good but also the bad of the Internet. Our job is to ensure that people are only exposed to the truth.

Sayan Chakraborty, Co-President Workday

Improve people, not replace them

When you say Workday, you mean finance and HR. Over the years, the company has developed a SaaS platform that seamlessly integrates human resources and financial matters to give customers a complete overview of what is happening across the company. “That’s all you need: someone to hire you and someone to pay your wages,” says CTO Claire Hickey jokingly after proudly announcing that she’s now in her fifteenth edition of Workday Rising. While in the past the focus was on large companies, Workday now also wants to attack medium-sized companies.

Nothing is more compelling than demonstrations, so Workday is excited to show what can be achieved with generative AI in the two specialty areas. First up is HR: Hickey shows how you can use Workday AI to create a job description for an open position in seconds. All that is required is the job title and the location where the applicant will be employed.

You can also use the same AI to convert your company policies into a clear FAQ for your employees. Workday is designed to provide personalized advice to your employees AI growth plans. In this module, generative AI appears as a career coach. This is just a selection of the diverse possible uses of artificial intelligence in human resources policy.

Finance managers can get in on the fun too. Among other things, Workday has developed a solution to their monthly problem: the expense report. Accountants no longer have to force their colleagues to forward the receipts and enter them all manually. Workday ensures that these are all carefully collected and accounted for.

With Workday, AI can also look for errors in your accounting. “The idea is to catch irregularities in your numbers before they become a bigger problem,” we hear from Andrew Workshaw, head of financial software at Workday. “Thanks to AI, the role of financial managers in organizations is changing. Not only do you have to protect more values, you also have to create new values.”

“At Workday, we firmly believe in the potential of generative AI to improve the work of your best people and make decision-making easier,” Roes sums it all up in one apt sentence. Accountants and HR managers should definitely not fear AI taking over their jobs. “AI should improve people’s lives rather than replace them,” is Chalwin’s core message.

Market for AI

In addition to ready-made AI applications, Workday also likes to let its customers work on their own. Workday Extend allows users to create applications and add them to the platform. Workday continues to expand this craft room AI gateway. This gives companies the tools they need to get started responsibly with generative AI.

Applications approved by Workday may be offered on the Marketplace. This is where customers come together, shop, and share opportunities within the Workday ecosystem. A special AI marketplace will also be established. This global sense of community is what sets Workday apart, says Roes. Companies sometimes use the word “community” inappropriately when talking about their customers, but the enthusiasm with which customers share their expertise with one another speaks to Workday.

HR is lagging behind, Belgium is leading

The introduction of generative AI is occurring at different speeds. Workday also came to this conclusion after a global study of C-level managers. In particular, HR is lagging behind while CFOs are ahead. Roes sees a possible explanation: “It’s certainly not that people in HR don’t see the potential, but they are a little more cautious about implementing it.” In finance, there are often technically trained people who deal with models This is much less the case in human resources.”

The speed of adoption is therefore often a cultural question, continues Roes. “Lack of information and knowledge is a major obstacle. If you don’t know how models work, you can’t know what the result will be. Data silos also represent an obstacle for many organizations: predictions based on bad data always lead to poor results. It is important to build up sufficient specialist knowledge and skills.”

The conversation ends with a “thumbs up” from Roes to the Belgian market. “Belgium is traditionally cautious when it comes to new technologies; we have a habit of first looking at how things are going in neighboring countries. AI has completely flipped this perception. More than half of Belgian IT leaders embrace AI and machine learning. We are doing better than, for example, Germany and Denmark.” This statistic also shows us that almost half of the company leaders in Belgium are not yet convinced.

The wind is favorable for Roes and her team. “We want to anchor our global community even more locally in order to be closer to our customers,” she concludes. In doing so, Workday wants to convince even the last doubters of the advantages of AI.

Belgium is traditionally cautious when it comes to new technologies; we have a habit of first looking at how things are going in neighboring countries. AI has completely flipped this perception.

Dorien Roes, Country Manager Workday Belux