Workday Closes Sana Acquisition

In Brief

Strategic acquisition completed. Workday closes acquisition of Sana, the enterprise AI knowledge and agent platform.
Unified AI platform. Sana's AI-driven search, agents and learning will be embedded into Workday's data platform.
Leadership continuity. Sana CEO Joel Hellermark says he will continue leading the team as products integrate into Workday.
Launch timeline. The integrated experience is expected to begin rolling out in 2026.

Workday, Inc. completed its acquisition of Sana, an AI company specializing in enterprise knowledge tools, on November 4. The company announced the acquisition at its Workday Rising event in September, with the stated goal of turning the Workday platform into "the new front door for work."

Today marks a defining moment for Sana:

We’ve entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Workday.

Sana will continue to build Sana Agents and Sana Learn—only now, at an even faster pace and greater scale. I’ll continue to lead our incredible team.

Over the past… pic.twitter.com/AJlTPVJ5X0
— Joel Hellermark (@joelhellermark) September 16, 2025

According to Workday, the combined solution will allow employees to access tailored information and complete tasks without switching between different systems. The new integrated experience is expected to launch in 2026.

Workday Expands Beyond Its HCM Roots

Workday underwent a series of significant changes that started during the pandemic. The launch of its Workday Everywhere in October 2021 could be seen as a foreshadowing of its Sana buy, as it was the first step towards claiming a more significant part of daily work. Workday Everywhere brought Workday apps and tools into wherever employees operated and gave access to those tools from common workplace hubs like Microsoft Teams.

The human capital giant introduced generative AI capabilities and the Workday AI Marketplace in 2023, further expanding its capabilities beyond its core HCM and financial management roots. At its recent Workday Rising conference, it launched an AI agent builder platform based on its acquisition of Flowise in August 2025.

Other recent acquisitions include document intelligence platform provider Evisort in September 2024 and Paradox, creator of a candidate experience agent aimed at frontline workers.

The push into new markets via innovation and acquisition come as other vendors, including Microsoft, look to gain ground in the cloud HR world.

What a Unified Sana and Workday Delivers

When Sana is fully integrated into the Workday platform it would include the following features:

Capability	Description
Unified Interface	Connects systems, data and actions across enterprise applications.
Sana Agents	No-code builder for creating AI agents that automate workflows.
Sana Learn	AI-native learning platform with analytics and personalized tutoring.
Proactive AI	According to Workday, anticipates employee needs based on role and context.
Workflow Automation	Enables AI agents to act across critical systems.

Sana Origins

Joel Hellermark founded Sana Labs in 2016 when he was 19 years old as a "Google for companies." The aim was to solve two digital workplace challenges:

Capture the institutional knowledge that's scattered across dozens of systems and formats and
Capture the institutional knowledge that's trapped in people's minds.

The company reached a $500 million valuation by 2024, with a 286 person team.

Hellermark describes the current moment in business technology as one of transformation: "This shift transforms the user experience from one of navigation and clicks to one of simple, intuitive communication, fundamentally changing how we interact with technology and freeing up human potential for more strategic, creative and fulfilling work."

Joining Workday means we can drastically accelerate our vision and together create a seamless way for organizations to access knowledge, automate repetitive work, and learn with agentic AI.

— Joel Hellermark, CEO, Sana

Learning Opportunities

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