Peer-Reviewed Research Tackles Some of the Hardest Technical Challenges in Enterprise AI
Recent Findings Reveal What It Takes to Ensure Agents Retain Only What Matters, Collaborate for Greater Accuracy, and Delete Without a Trace
PLEASANTON, Calif., Aug. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ: WDAY), the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance, and IT, today announced Workday AI Research, a dedicated technical research team focused on advancing reliable, trustworthy, and efficient AI for the enterprise. Workday AI Research findings help shape AI development at Workday and contribute new evidence, methods, and evaluation practices to the broader research community.
Workday researchers have produced a growing body of work on challenges central to enterprise AI, including persistent agent memory, explainability, multi-agent orchestration, reward overoptimization in AI training, recommendation systems, and adaptive resource control. Recent work has been accepted by top conferences including the International Conference on Machine Learning, the International Conference on Learning Representations, the ACM Web Conference, and the Association for Computational Linguistics.
“As AI agents evolve to remember context and take action on behalf of employees, enterprises are facing complex challenges around privacy, auditability, efficiency, and enterprise-grade accuracy that off-the-shelf models simply cannot solve,” said Gerrit Kazmaier, president, product and technology, Workday. “Workday AI Research is dedicated to solving these exact problems, delivering the rigorous science needed to build intelligent, reliable systems that organizations can actually trust and deploy at scale.”
Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise AI Researchers
To help fuel this research and deepen Workday’s collaboration with the academic community, the company is also introducing the Workday AI Research PhD Fellowship to support exceptional doctoral students working at the intersection of AI and enterprise software. Fellows receive $50,000 in annual research funding through an unrestricted gift to their university, dedicated mentorship and direct collaboration with a Workday AI researcher, and early access to relevant career opportunities at Workday. Interested PhD candidates can find more details at workday.com/ai-research.
Recent Breakthroughs from Workday AI Research
Workday AI Research is exploring some of the most important questions organizations face as they adopt AI:
Can AI agents remember the right things without storing everything?
Workday researchers developed a more selective approach to agent memory that helps AI keep useful information while filtering out outdated, duplicate, or unreliable details. In testing, the method delivered 12% higher precision and approximately 8% better overall memory quality, while retaining 97% of the memories that mattered. It also ran about 31% faster than the leading AI-driven comparison—showing that better memory can be both more useful and more efficient.
Can multiple AI agents make better decisions than one?
Workday researchers found that splitting complex work among specialized agents improved both answer quality and compliance. In the study, one agent explored options, another focused on following the rules, and a coordinating agent directed their work. The approach improved accuracy by 5.8%, and every final answer met the study’s defined constraints. The finding suggests that organizations do not have to choose between higher-quality AI recommendations and strong guardrails.
Does asking an AI agent to forget something actually make it forget?
Workday researchers found that deleting information from an AI agent’s memory does not always remove it for good. When researchers asked an agent to forget something, a copy of it was still recoverable from an old summary about one in five times. Fully erasing the information meant also deleting every summary that mentioned it—showing that “forgetting” in AI agents requires clearing every copy, not just the original record.
While AI is quickly changing how businesses operate, organizations need systems they can trust to retain the right context, explain their recommendations dependably, and follow clear guardrails. By connecting rigorous AI science with real-world enterprise needs, Workday AI Research is helping build a new generation of AI tools that are useful, efficient, transparent, and ready for work.
For More Information
Visit workday.com/ai-research for a complete list of Workday AI research papers.Read our blog posts spotlighting recent Workday AI research:“What Makes AI Dependable? New Workday Study Puts This Question to The Test”.“For Better AI Results, Split The Work Across Agents”“Research Shows The Best AI Memory Isn’t Bigger. It’s More Selective.”
About Workday
Workday operates at the heart of the enterprise – HR, finance, and IT – where the margin for error is effectively zero. By tightly coupling AI with the context, guardrails, and trusted processes that run the business, Workday goes beyond AI that assists with work to agents that are capable of driving measurable outcomes. More than 11,500 organizations worldwide, including more than 65% of the Fortune 500, trust Workday to deliver. For more information about Workday, visit workday.com.
© 2026 Workday, Inc. All rights reserved. Workday and the Workday logo are trademarks of Workday, Inc. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding Workday’s plans, beliefs, and expectations. These forward-looking statements are based only on currently available information and our current beliefs, expectations, and assumptions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. If the risks materialize, assumptions prove incorrect, or we experience unexpected changes in circumstances, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements, and therefore you should not rely on any forward-looking statements. Risks include, but are not limited to, risks described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including our most recent report on Form 10-Q or Form 10-K and other reports that we have filed and will file with the SEC from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. Workday assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release, except as required by law.
Any unreleased services, features, or functions referenced in this document, our website, or other press releases or public statements that are not currently available are subject to change at Workday’s discretion and may not be delivered as planned or at all. Customers who purchase Workday services should make their purchase decisions based upon services, features, and functions that are currently available.
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SOURCE Workday Inc.
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