It was a hugely exciting four days at Workday Rising in San Francisco at the end of September 2023. Rising is the premier enterprise applications conference in the world, and this year was no exception with exciting announcements that were introduced in the areas of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and applications innovation in Human Capital Management and Financial Management.
The innovation that Workday introduced showed up right at the outset with the innovation keynote on Wednesday morning. Aneel Bhusri, Workday’s Co-CEO introduced some of the newer innovations including Workday AI that featured the AI gateway as well as the Workday extend.
What I thought was particularly interesting was when Workday introduced the concept of enterprise Large Language Models (LLMs) that leveraged Workday’s core AI and machine learning to operate on enterprise data reliably, securely, and with foundational functional grounding.
Next up were Workdays leaders for human capital management David Somers and financials management Terrance Wampler who took the stage to discuss some of the new innovation that is coming in these Workday products. They called it Flexible and Flawless Technology. Examples of these include the following:
In fact 40+ use cases now leverage Workday AI and ML which was incredibly compelling to see.
The icing on the cake was the announcement of Workday’s brand new AI Marketplace, a first of its kind curated marketplace where customers could find leading AI products built for Workday with the security, privacy, and ethics that customers expect from Workday.
It was awesome to see Auditoria right there on the 1st row as part of this amazing list of companies that were hand selected by Workday for their first ever AI Marketplace. The launch for this is Q2’2024 and we have an exciting few months ahead as we work together to bring this to reality. Read the press release here.
That set the tone for the week, and from that point on it was all about AI and innovation in machine learning for the Workday ecosystem. For me personally it was great to meet with more than 70 plus Workday customers including leaders from industries such as healthcare, high technology, retail, financial services and telecommunication services. I heard first hand how they were actively using Workday Financials Management, why they selected Workday and moved into the cloud with Workday ERP instead of other ERP platforms and how they plan to innovate over the next several years with Workday and their partners.
The next frontier of innovation for me was the product strategy session led by Andy Kershaw and team of PM leaders. Andy led the charge talking about how Workday was innovating with the next gen of financials management, leveraging GenAI for HyperAutomation and how Workday was methodically introducing capabilities around GenAI over the next 12-24 months. There are more than 1700+ Workday Financial Management customers, and newer products such as Accounting Center and Prism Analytics have grown considerably.
So which are the areas within Workday Financial Management that have AI/ML adoption currently? Well, Andy shared that areas such as Receipt Scanning, Journal Insights, and Invoice Scanning, were among the top use-cases that were adopted that included ML capabilities.
Tim Wakeford, Workday’s VP of Product Strategy then got on the stage and talked about how Workday is rapidly changing how they think about bringing value to customers. Their strategy leverages both native innovation as well as partner innovation and then he went onto introduce their newest partnerships, with Auditoria, FloQast, and Kyriba. Clearly, I’m thrilled and honored to see Auditoria and our AP Helpdesk that was referenced and called out as part of this illustrious group.
Another awesome session at Rising was that led by my colleague, Taylor Schreiber, and her Product Management counterpart from Workday, Jewel Laptavijok. They talked about Intelligent Automation in Payables, and how AI transforms the work done by AP teams, using GenAI to eliminate manual processing, handle and process invoices, and streamline the period close process.
Taylor covered both Auditora’s AP Helpdesk and Advanced Accruals for Suppliers, while Jewel covered Workday’s OCR solutions. These Auditoria AI-enable applications are formally certified and badged by Workday.
The benefits of Intelligent Automation in Payables are immense. With Auditoria and Workday, customers streamline manual processing of AP tasks, automate supplier interactions, and transform the supplier experience, all while accelerating the monthly close process. It also includes capabilities such as spend anomaly detection and audit-ready compliant processing.
I also had the opportunity to discuss how AI is transforming the Office of the CFO. In a panel that featured Andy Kershaw, GM of Workday Financials, Amit Sharan, CIO of LiveRamp and Ray Wang, Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, and myself, I made the case for why AI is ready for prime time now, and what are some of the key areas in the Office of the CFO that would benefit from AI today. Functions such as AP, AR, General Accounting, and FP&A could all take advantage of AI and Machine Learning to maximize operations.
My fellow panelists made the case that the Office of the CFO is moving from purely transactional to strategic imperatives. And with AI, finance could handle exponential tasks, and scenario plans, and support massively complex and scalable datasets with which companies have to deal.
Workday Rising also offered us a great opportunity to meet with customers and partners from all over the world. Auditoria hosted a hospitality event and we were thrilled to be joined by our friends from Datastax, FINRA, Netflix, Lineage Logistics, SecureWorks, Stanford Healthcare, and several more companies. Our friends from Workday also joined us and made it a most memorable evening.
The key takeaways from Workday Rising 2023 include:
Emphasis on AI and ML: Workday is significantly incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning into its enterprise solutions, showcasing various AI and ML-driven innovations.
Adoption of Large Language Models (LLMs): Introducing LLMs reflects Workday's innovative approach to data processing and insights generation.
Enhancements in Core Products: Notable advancements in Human Capital and Financial Management were presented, highlighting Workday's commitment to evolving its key offerings.
Launch of AI Marketplace: The introduction of Workday’s AI Marketplace marks a strategic move towards offering secure, AI-integrated solutions to customers.
Strategic Partnerships: Collaborations with companies such as Auditoria indicate Workday's strategy of blending internal innovation with external expertise and AI savvy.
At Workday Rising 2023, Auditoria showcased our significant role in the AI-driven enterprise solutions landscape. Central to our presence was our feature in the launch of Workday's AI marketplace, where we demonstrated our integration with Workday's ecosystem, particularly highlighting AP Helpdesk and Advanced Accruals for Suppliers. These certified and badged solutions by Workday emphasized Auditoria's commitment to AI-enabled financial management.
In a session on Intelligent Automation in Payables, Taylor and Jewel illustrated the transformative impact of our AI solutions on accounts payable processes, underlining Auditoria's expertise in AI-driven automation and its practical applications in finance.
Furthermore, my participation in a panel discussion on AI's role in the Office of the CFO, and hosting a hospitality event, underlined our active engagement in the community and industry networking. These interactions allowed Auditoria to gather customer insights and showcase our commitment to shining a light on why corporate finance needs artificial intelligence to be the most successful area of the business.
Through these initiatives, we at Auditoria reinforced our position as a key contributor to the AI revolution in financial processes, highlighting our innovative solutions and collaborative approach within the Workday ecosystem.
Overall, Workday Rising 2023 highlighted a strong shift towards AI and ML integration in enterprise management, underscoring Workday's innovative approach and collaborative strategies and solidifying Auditoria's strategic partnership and key contributions with Workday to usher in the era of artificial intelligence for finance.
Read more about our Workday Partnership.