Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ: WDAY), the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance, and IT, today announced the general availability of Workday Learning, powered by Sana. The solution combines Workday’s trusted people and skills data with Sana’s AI-native learning experience, so organizations can deliver personalized training grounded in the workforce data they already trust.
As organizations race to become AI‑ready, many learning teams are still constrained by fragmented systems, manual workflows, and generic courses that can’t keep up with the pace of change. When training is generic and irrelevant, employees find ways to route around it, and completion rates say little about real capability. Organizations need learning that is personalized, dynamic, and engaging enough that employees want to use it – while giving learning teams a faster way to create, update, translate, and manage programs.
Workday Learning, powered by Sana, brings AI into each part of the learning experience. Learners get a personal tutor that coaches them through complex material, breaks down difficult concepts into practical guidance, and recommends what to learn next. Creators use AI to turn existing, static material into engaging, interactive learning experiences, while reducing the time it takes to create, update, and translate courses for global audiences. Administrators get AI‑powered automation for assignments, campaigns, and other key learning tasks, helping Learning and Development (L&D) teams spend less time managing processes and more time shaping strategy and business impact.
“Checking the box isn’t the same as building a skill,” said Joel Hellermark, chief AI officer, Workday. “With a personal AI tutor, interactive quizzes, and learning tailored to each employee’s role and skills, Workday Learning, powered by Sana, turns required training into engaging experiences employees can apply in their day-to-day work.”
Learning That Meets Employees Where They Work
With Workday Learning, powered by Sana, learning feels like a natural part of the workday rather than a separate task. Embedded in the learning experience, a personal AI tutor gives employees in-the-moment support tailored to their role, skills, and goals. Employees can ask questions in natural language, get clear, actionable explanations tied to the material in front of them, practice new skills, and receive feedback in the format that works best for them. The solution also recommends personalized learning paths that help employees build the skills they need for their current role and what comes next.
Smart search helps employees find specific answers instead of digging through long modules. A question like “How do I handle a customer data request in Germany?” can surface a relevant lesson or policy explanation for that scenario, rather than requiring the learner to click through multiple generic compliance courses.
Because recommendations are informed by Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) data, including an employee’s role, skills, organization, and location, employees see learning paths that reflect their actual context. For example, a manager who moves to a new region can be directed to relevant local policies and leadership resources, while an employee building skills for a new role can receive recommendations aligned to that role’s requirements. Courses can also include interactive elements like quizzes, polls, and reflection prompts to help employees check their understanding as they go, turning learning from a one‑off event into an ongoing, adaptive experience.
From Blank Page to Live Course in Hours, Not Weeks
For instructional designers, L&D teams, and subject‑matter experts, Workday Learning, powered by Sana, is built to remove the production bottlenecks that slow learning down. Instead of starting from a blank slide deck, teams can upload existing PDFs, presentations, or other online course files and have them converted into structured, interactive courses in minutes.
The AI-powered editor helps teams transform static source material into engaging, interactive learning experiences. It proposes outlines, learning objectives, knowledge checks, and interactive elements that authors can review and adjust. An integrated writing assistant helps handle everyday tasks like drafting lesson text, simplifying long policies into learner‑friendly explanations, generating quiz questions, and adapting content for different roles or regions.
Built-in translation capabilities allow teams to localize courses into dozens of languages from the same source, helping global organizations roll out programs simultaneously across markets instead of in slow, sequential waves. Multiple contributors can work together in real time on the same course, simplifying reviews across learning, compliance, and business stakeholders.
Organizations using these AI‑powered authoring capabilities have reported reductions of up to 98% in content creation time for many learning programs, moving from multi‑week production cycles to hours and allowing teams to keep content aligned with fast‑changing regulations, products, and skills needs.
One Place to Run Learning Operations
For learning administrators and HR teams, Workday Learning, powered by Sana, provides one place to manage assignments, campaigns, reporting, and controls across both Workday‑native and Sana‑created content.
Learning paths update automatically when employees join, change roles, or move regions, reducing the amount of time administrators spend on manual list building for compliance, onboarding, and skills programs.
Because learning data sits alongside HR data in Workday, leaders and administrators can track how programs relate to outcomes like skills development, internal mobility, performance, and retention – not just completion rates. A safety program, for example, can be evaluated not only by completion rates but also in relation to incident data for specific regions.
Customers using these capabilities have seen learning operations move from reactive to proactive – with some reporting up to five times faster compliance reporting, three times higher learner engagement compared to legacy learning systems, and significant time savings for administrators and learning teams.
Customers Are Reshaping How Learning Gets Done
“At The Josh Bersin Company, we shifted our learning business to an AI-first model using Sana, moving thousands of learners into an interactive, always-on environment and converting a large library of programs into interactive courses in months rather than years,” said Josh Bersin, global industry analyst and CEO of The Josh Bersin Company. “Now integrated into Workday Learning, Sana gives companies an extraordinary opportunity to modernize large learning libraries into AI-fueled personal experiences and maintain enterprise governance standards.”
“At Accenture, reinvention is powered by continuous learning and the ability to build skills at speed and at scale,” said Colin Anderson, chief operating officer, HR at Accenture. “We’re evolving our learning ecosystem to be more intelligent, personalized, and aligned to the changing needs of our clients. Workday Learning, powered by Sana, is an important part of that journey and builds on top of the Accenture LearnVantage foundation—helping us deliver more adaptive, AI-enabled experiences that accelerate capability building across our workforce.”
Availability
Workday Learning, powered by Sana, is now generally available globally as an integrated learning solution for Workday HCM customers. For organizations that do not use Workday HCM or Workday Financial Management, Sana Learn is available as a standalone offering. Existing guidance for Workday Learning will continue to apply in environments where Sana components cannot yet be used, including certain regulated and sovereign deployments.
For More Information
- Join the webinar to see how Accenture will revamp its global learning program with Workday Learning, powered by Sana.
- Read the blog to learn how Workday used Sana Learn to improve L&D efficiency.
- Download the e-book to explore the new agentic operating model for L&D.
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