Our New Partnership With Workday
Josh Bersin and Workday have announced a formal research partnership, unveiled at Workday Rising, focused on the 'HR 2030' framework — Bersin's concept for an agentic AI-powered HR operating model. The collaboration will produce whitepapers, tools, education programs, and advisory services. A first joint guidebook, 'HR 2030: A Playbook for Agentic HR,' is already available. The partnership builds on Workday's 2025 acquisition of Sana Labs, which co-developed Bersin's Galileo AI platform. An integration of Galileo into the Workday platform is also reportedly in the pipeline.

Key facts
- Josh Bersin and Workday announced a research and advisory partnership at Workday Rising, reportedly on October 13, 2026.
- The partnership is organized around the 'HR 2030' framework — Bersin's model for agentic AI-driven HR operations.
- Deliverables include whitepapers, tools, education programs, and advisory services.
- A first joint guidebook, 'HR 2030: A Playbook for Agentic HR,' is already published.
- Workday acquired Sana Labs — co-developer of Bersin's Galileo AI platform — in 2025.
- Galileo reportedly serves more than 2,000 organizations and 50,000 HR professionals.
- An integration of Galileo into the Workday platform is described as forthcoming, with no timeline disclosed.
- Bersin asserts the deal does not compromise his firm's independence as an analyst and advisor.
**Josh Bersin and Workday Unite Around 'HR 2030' Agentic AI Framework** At its annual Workday Rising conference, Workday and The Josh Bersin Company announced a formal research and advisory partnership organized around what Bersin calls the 'HR 2030' model — a vision of human resources operations rebuilt around multi-agent AI architectures.
The partnership will span whitepapers, diagnostic tools, education programs, and advisory services, all aimed at helping companies — Workday customers and otherwise — plan and execute a transition to this new agentic operating model. A first joint output, *HR 2030: A Playbook for Agentic HR*, is already available for download.
**A Relationship Years in the Making** The announcement is not a cold partnership. Workday, founded in 2005, has grown into one of the most widely adopted enterprise HCM platforms globally, reportedly serving more than 11,500 organizations. Bersin's firm has tracked the HR technology market since around 2001 and is widely regarded as one of the field's most influential independent voices.
The connective tissue is Sana Labs. In 2022, Bersin partnered with the AI learning company to co-develop Galileo, a platform the firm describes as an AI agent and intelligence layer purpose-built for HR and management. According to Bersin, more than 2,000 organizations and 50,000 HR professionals currently use Galileo or its companion product, Galileo Learn.
When Workday acquired Sana Labs in 2025, it created a natural gravitational pull toward a deeper relationship — one that is now being formalized.
**What Comes Next: Galileo Inside Workday** Perhaps the most consequential detail in the announcement is largely buried: Bersin states that an embedding of Galileo into the Workday platform is forthcoming. No timeline, pricing, or technical scope has been disclosed, but the implication is significant — it would bring Bersin's AI advisory layer directly into the workflows of Workday's enterprise customer base.
**The Independence Question** Bersin was explicit that the partnership does not alter his firm's independent analyst and advisory stance. The claim is credible by intent but will draw scrutiny: deep commercial relationships between prominent analysts and major platform vendors are a perennial point of debate in the HR technology industry. Buyers relying on Bersin's research should factor the relationship into their assessment of his Workday-adjacent commentary.
**Why It Matters for HR Leaders** The partnership effectively accelerates the mainstreaming of the agentic AI conversation in enterprise HR. With Workday's distribution reach and Bersin's research authority behind a shared framework, 'HR 2030' is positioned to become a dominant reference model for how large organizations think about AI-era HR transformation over the next several years.
Verified vendor profiles for the companies named above — DHRMap wires every story to its directory.

Workday provides an enterprise AI platform for managing people, money, and AI agents across human resources, finance, spend, and planning.
Listed in DHRMap for Learning & Development.
Austin-based health benefits platform offering affordable, tech-driven health insurance plans to small and midsize businesses.
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The Bersin-Workday partnership is a bellwether moment for agentic AI in enterprise HR. It pairs the field's most influential independent analyst voice with its leading HCM platform behind a unified framework — 'HR 2030' — that could shape how thousands of organizations plan AI-driven HR transformation. For HR technology buyers, it signals that agentic operating models are moving from theoretical to strategic priority. For vendors, it raises the competitive stakes around AI-native HR platforms. And the forthcoming Galileo-Workday integration, if realized, would mark one of the first deep analyst-AI-platform fusions in the industry.
