Workday plans to acquire C1.ai, an identity governance platform for people and AI agents, to manage their access to enterprise systems such as CRM, finance and human capital management. The company says the deal will extend its Agent System of Record, which gives organizations one place to view and manage agents, with controls intended to make work easier, safer and more compliant. For example, C1.ai could handle access approvals for a new employee seeking tools such as Slack or financial dashboards, instead of requiring manual service tickets. C1.ai CEO Alex Bovee said the integration would manage access for humans and agents in real time, making work faster without reducing security.

At Workday Rising, co-founder Aneel Bhusri argued that HR systems are the source of employee identity because every company employee is recorded there. He said Workday’s Agent System of Record would serve as the identity source for agents, while C1.ai would govern what people and agents can do across applications. Companies may have multiple identity systems that authenticate users and grant application access, Bhusri said, but Workday aims to provide centralized governance. He added that Workday can work with identity providers such as Microsoft and Okta, and that sales may take time to ramp up. Bhusri said the market would take time to recognize the opportunity and described the deal as potentially disruptive to the identity sector.

Workday President of Product and Technology Gerrit Kazmaier said enterprise AI needs to be trusted, while existing security approaches were designed around humans or service accounts. AI models can act on behalf of different people, he said, raising questions about what access each action should receive. Kazmaier also pointed to delays between hiring and access provisioning, compliance questions, and the challenge of inferring permissions from an employee’s job, projects and teammates. He said C1.ai uses task-based identity, granting permissions for work taking place at a particular task, which he sees as useful for assigning permissions to AI requests in real time.

Kazmaier estimated that in two or three years, agents could outnumber humans by 50-100 to one. He described this as a growth opportunity in a digital economy that is not constrained by the number of workers, and said C1.ai could provide an identity and security enforcement layer for AI systems. He also described Workday’s growth model as extending beyond foundational AI models to tools and data that provide context and permissions within real-time workflows. The article’s author said Workday sees a major addressable market opportunity and could gain a differentiator if it executes and explains the strategy well. The acquisition is expected to close early next year, subject to approvals.

Workday plans to acquire C1.ai, an identity governance platform for people and AI agents, to manage their access to enterprise systems such as CRM, finance and human capital management. The company says the deal will extend its Agent System of Record, which gives organizations one place to view and manage agents, with controls intended to make work easier, safer and more compliant. For example, C1.ai could handle access approvals for a new employee seeking tools such as Slack or financial dashboards, instead of requiring manual service tickets. C1.ai CEO Alex Bovee said the integration would manage access for humans and agents in real time, making work faster without reducing security.

At Workday Rising, co-founder Aneel Bhusri argued that HR systems are the source of employee identity because every company employee is recorded there. He said Workday’s Agent System of Record would serve as the identity source for agents, while C1.ai would govern what people and agents can do across applications. Companies may have multiple identity systems that authenticate users and grant application access, Bhusri said, but Workday aims to provide centralized governance. He added that Workday can work with identity providers such as Microsoft and Okta, and that sales may take time to ramp up. Bhusri said the market would take time to recognize the opportunity and described the deal as potentially disruptive to the identity sector.

Workday President of Product and Technology Gerrit Kazmaier said enterprise AI needs to be trusted, while existing security approaches were designed around humans or service accounts. AI models can act on behalf of different people, he said, raising questions about what access each action should receive. Kazmaier also pointed to delays between hiring and access provisioning, compliance questions, and the challenge of inferring permissions from an employee’s job, projects and teammates. He said C1.ai uses task-based identity, granting permissions for work taking place at a particular task, which he sees as useful for assigning permissions to AI requests in real time.

Kazmaier estimated that in two or three years, agents could outnumber humans by 50-100 to one. He described this as a growth opportunity in a digital economy that is not constrained by the number of workers, and said C1.ai could provide an identity and security enforcement layer for AI systems. He also described Workday’s growth model as extending beyond foundational AI models to tools and data that provide context and permissions within real-time workflows. The article’s author said Workday sees a major addressable market opportunity and could gain a differentiator if it executes and explains the strategy well. The acquisition is expected to close early next year, subject to approvals.