Welcome to this exclusive interview with Carl Eschenbach, CEO of Workday, part of the Cloud Wars Top 10 CEO Outlook 2025 series. Eschenbach shares with Bob Evans his excitement for the upcoming year and discusses how rapid advancements in AI technology are reshaping industries, driving smarter decisions, and unlocking new levels of productivity while also bringing up issues of ethical implementation and data security.
Highlights
AI Adoption and Business Value (01:44)
Eschenbach explains that there’s been a shift from experimental AI to practical implementation. The shift means that “customers are going to look to go to trusted partners, partners they have an existing relationship with, partners that they know have a highly curated set of data.” Workday has such a curated data set. Further, as part of the shift, there’s now a need for ROI and total cost of ownership analysis in AI investments.
CEO Priorities for 2025 (05:45)
AI, enterprise consolidation, and talent are Eschenbach’s key priorities for 2025. When it comes to talent, he says CEOs and other leaders need to think about how “that talent is going to ultimately peacefully coexist with AI and things like agents in the future.” He also discusses Workday’s AI mindset — it’s not just about delivering it to customers but also successfully integrating AI internally — along with AI’s role in driving productivity. Customers are looking to do “more with less.” They want to consolidate point solutions onto more comprehensive platforms like Workday.
AI Deployment and Talent Integration (09:06)
CEOs should foster an AI-first culture. Eschenbach provides examples of AI use cases, such as job description automation and recruiter agents, showcasing the tangible ROI and productivity gains in HR and finance. Integrating AI with existing talent helps drive business benefits.
Competitive Advantages and Market Position (11:29)
Workday’s success stems from its technology, large client base, and on-time delivery. “Our customers have greater than a 95% on-time delivery of the Workday platform and on budget,” Eschenbach points out “We know how to deploy this at scale across the biggest companies in the world, which gives us a leg up versus our competition, who, at times, have very complex data sets and environments and can’t implement at the speed and pace and at the dollar value that a Workday can.” Other Workday attributes include its platform’s open architecture, as well as its strong company culture and high levels of employee engagement.
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Partner Growth and International Expansion (15:24)
Eschenbach reports significant growth in the partner community and its impact on business. “Historically, we’ve had really good partners . . . 10% of our new business in New ACV [annual contract value] last quarter came from our partners. Our partners are having a meaningful impact on our business. We have grown our partner community by five times in 18 months.” He speaks about the focus on selling through hyperscalers and forming strategic partnerships, as well as the potential in international markets and continued investments in new sectors, such as the U.S. federal market.
Data Set and AI Partnerships (19:05)
“We’re opening up the aperture,” Escenbach says, explaining how Workday is tackling AI. “We’re thinking about AI in multiple ways.” Curated data is essential for AI tools. Eschenbach discusses the Workday platform’s integration with Slack and Microsoft to enable agent-to-agent communication, underscoring that data is important in powering AI tools and delivering customer benefits.
Innovation and External Concerns (21:51)
In the face of the potential impact of global macro situations, there’s a need to stay focused on innovation.”We focus on innovation, and we focus on each other here inside the building and our workmates, and we continue to support our partner ecosystem on a global basis. So while there are some concerns out there, if you focus too much on them, it’s a distraction.”
Gratitude (24:11)
Eschenbach concludes by expressing gratitude for his colleagues at Workday, customers, and global partners for their trust and collaboration. He touches again upon the rapid innovation at Workday, the recognition from customers, and their increasing investment in the platform as a key part of the future of AI.
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