Workday said on October 13 that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire C1.ai, an identity governance platform for people and AI agents. The release gives no price and expects the deal to close in the quarter ending January 31, 2027.
What happened
According to Workday’s announcement, C1.ai connects to systems such as email, CRM, code repositories, finance systems and cloud infrastructure, and grants and removes access as workers and agents join, change roles and leave. Workday plans to build it onto its Agent System of Record so agents get scoped access and lose it when their work ends.
Why it matters
The release pairs two statistics. It says C1.ai’s research found that 95% of large U.S. companies already run autonomous agents, and that only 21% report a mature way to govern them, citing Deloitte’s State of AI research. The first number comes from the company being acquired, so treat it as a vendor survey. Our earlier look at Deloitte’s agentic AI survey reported 42% of respondents had tested agents and 15% had scaled them. Those survey bases differ, so the figures do not combine.
What to ask
In our reading, identity for agents is moving into the larger platforms. Google took a similar step with agent identities in Gemini. CIOs running Workday should ask whether C1.ai’s connectors cover the non-Workday systems where their agents hold credentials, and whether security teams keep a separate approval trail outside the HR system of record.
Source: Workday Newsroom
