Workday and Microsoft Unite to Secure and Centralize Enterprise AI Agent Management
Workday and Microsoft link ASOR with Entra Agent ID to manage people and AI agents in one place. Gain verified identities, unified controls, cross-platform workflows, and clear ROI.
Workday + Microsoft: One Place to Manage Your People and AI Agents
Workday announced a new collaboration with Microsoft that connects the Workday Agent System of Record (ASOR) with Microsoft Entra Agent ID. If you build agents with Azure AI Foundry or Copilot Studio, you'll be able to register and manage them in Workday with verified identities and clear business context. The goal is simple: one secure source of truth for both people and AI agents, with measurable results.
What this means for leaders
- Unified identity for agents: Every agent built on Microsoft's platforms can receive an Entra Agent ID and be registered in Workday ASOR.
- Single control surface: Define roles, permissions, and oversight once, then apply consistently across systems.
- Cross-platform workflows: Employees can trigger a task in Microsoft 365 Copilot that hands off to a Workday agent without switching apps.
- Clear ROI: Workday ASOR dashboards show usage, time saved, and productivity impact across people and agents.
- Security and compliance: Detect over-provisioned access or unusual activity and act fast.
Why this matters now
AI agents are multiplying across teams and tools. Without a system of record, you get shadow access, fragmented policies, and little visibility into value. This integration gives you identity, governance, and analytics in one place so you can scale with control.
How it works (at a glance)
- Build an agent in Copilot Studio or Azure AI Foundry.
- Assign an Entra Agent ID for verified identity and access control.
- Register the agent in Workday ASOR to apply business context, roles, and policies.
- Enable handoffs between Microsoft 365 Copilot experiences and Workday agents for end-to-end workflows.
- Monitor adoption, usage, time saved, and outcomes in Workday ASOR analytics.
Practical use cases to ship first
- Onboarding: A Copilot Studio agent collects details, then registers in Workday so onboarding steps run inside Workday with policy guardrails.
- Employee self-service: From Microsoft 365 Copilot, employees update career goals or submit peer reviews; Workday completes the workflow inline.
Governance and security you can audit
- Verified identities for agents via Entra Agent ID ensure every action is attributable.
- Centralized permissions and oversight policies managed in Workday ASOR.
- Continuous monitoring for over-permissioned agents and unusual activity, with remediation paths.
KPIs to track from day one
- Adoption: Active agents, active users, workflows completed.
- Efficiency: Time saved per process, cycle-time reduction, deflected tickets.
- Quality: Error rates, rework, policy exceptions.
- Risk: Access deviations, segregation-of-duties violations, incident response time.
- Financial impact: Cost per transaction, cost to serve, net ROI per agent.
30-60-90 day rollout plan
- Days 0-30: Inventory existing agents and access patterns. Define priority workflows (onboarding, reviews). Establish identity and approval model (owners, approvers, reviewers).
- Days 31-60: Register pilot agents in Workday ASOR. Map roles/permissions. Configure monitoring alerts. Train HR/IT owners on escalation paths.
- Days 61-90: Expand to additional workflows. Turn on ROI dashboards for leadership. Formalize quarterly access reviews and exception handling.
Questions for your IT and vendor teams
- Which agents are in production today, and do they have Entra Agent IDs?
- What is our approval flow for agent capabilities and data access?
- How are we measuring time saved and outcomes inside Workday ASOR?
- What alerts exist for anomalous behavior or over-provisioned agents?
- How do we handle agent handoffs between Microsoft 365 Copilot and Workday without breaking context?
Where to learn more
- Workday Rising digital sessions: The Workday Platform: Transforming Work with Agentic AI [25-KEY2], Sept. 16 at 8:45am PT
- Accelerating CIO Transformation with an AI-First Open Platform for Work [25-KEY6], Sept. 16 at 11:00am PT
- Workday Everywhere in Agent Platforms and Collaboration Tools [25-ITLP1295], Sept. 18 at 11:00am PT
Resources
Upskill your managers
If you're formalizing an AI agent program, make sure your leaders know the fundamentals of AI governance, identity, and value tracking. Curated learning by role can accelerate adoption and reduce risk.
About Workday: Workday is an enterprise AI platform for managing people, money, and agents, used by more than 11,000 organizations worldwide, including over 65% of the Fortune 500.
