Workday has announced the rollout of its AI-powered self-service agent, Sana Self-Service Agent, now available in Microsoft 365 Copilot. This integration is designed to enable employees and managers to access HR and finance services directly, without leaving their everyday work environment.
A simplified experience at the heart of workplace tools
In many organizations, employees still have to navigate between multiple applications to manage simple tasks: checking leave balances, viewing a payslip or tracking an expense report.
With this new integration, Workday aims to reduce this complexity by making these actions accessible directly from Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Users will be able to ask questions in natural language and receive immediate answers, while also carrying out certain HR and finance actions without switching tools.
Concrete use cases for employees and managers
The Sana agent notably enables:
- employees to view their leave balances, payslips or personal information
- submit leave requests or check internal policies (such as family leave)
- managers to approve timesheets, track team objectives or initiate performance reviews
- finance teams to obtain information about expense policies or initiate requests related to internal processes
All actions are executed in Workday, ensuring consistency with the company’s processes and rules.
An integration focused on security and governance
Workday emphasizes that this integration relies on its existing security, compliance and access management mechanisms.
HR and finance data continue to be processed within the Workday environment, while Microsoft 365 Copilot serves solely as the conversational interface.
Each interaction complies with:
- users’ access rights
- existing approval workflows
- the governance rules specific to each organization
This approach combines automation and control, a key consideration in enterprise systems.
An “agentic” AI approach integrated into workplace environments
With Sana, Workday is adopting an approach known as agentic AI, in which systems no longer simply answer questions but can also execute actions.
The aim is to reduce friction in business processes by automating repetitive tasks while retaining human validation and strict governance rules.
Simplified adoption for businesses
According to Workday, activating this feature in Microsoft 365 Copilot does not require a complex deployment. It primarily involves configuration through the Microsoft marketplace, with no new system or additional authentication required for users.
Stronger collaboration between Workday and Microsoft
This initiative is part of a broader strategy of interoperability between AI platforms and business tools. The aim is to enable organizations to unify their intelligent assistants while retaining their systems of record.
Workday and Microsoft are thus offering a more seamless approach to managing HR and finance tasks. This development illustrates a strong market trend: making AI a central access point for business processes, directly integrated into everyday tools.
source: Workday
