More than 5,500 customers use Workday agents; Flex Credits have no disclosed revenue yet
Agent Passport entered Early Access with Cisco as assessor, Decision Intelligence reached HR and finance metered in Flex Credits, and C1.ai is coming to enforce agent access. The products are real; the disclosed revenue is not yet, and the quarter that could first show it ended October 31.
Richard Tang · 4 min read
Workday+0.01% — Workday, up 0.01 percent today spent October assembling the piece of the AI stack nobody had built: a signed record of who an enterprise agent may act for, and proof it was tested. Agent Passport reached Early Access with Cisco+1.63% — Cisco, up 1.63 percent today AI Defense running the adversarial tests behind its stamps 1, C1.ai is being bought to turn HR events into access enforcement 2, and Decision Intelligence reached general HR and finance customers, metered in Flex−0.51% — Flex, down 0.51 percent today Credits 3.
The buildout rides on $2.5 billion of new senior notes, most of them for general corporate purposes 4. Whether any of it can be charged for is what decides the stock, and the fiscal quarter that could first show it closed October 31 4.
Agents act with credentials, so someone must own the record of what they may do
The technology forced the question. Agents now hold credentials, call tools and write to systems of record, so approving one means approving an actor that can reach real money and real data 1.
Until recently the only answer was a security questionnaire, a static reply about a system that does not hold still 1. Agent Passport replaces it with an auditable record of what was verified, by whom, and to which standard, mapped to published frameworks such as OWASP and MITRE ATLAS 1.
Workday holds its own agents to that bar first, and Straiker, an independent red-teaming firm, is connecting so customer-built agents can carry evidence from a second tester 5. C1.ai closes the loop from verification to enforcement: a transfer or a departure triggers permission changes across connected systems 2.
Workday meters analysis by the credit, and much of the saved time is verification
Decision Intelligence is the charging mechanism. Teams can ask in plain language whether a role should be filled by an outside hire, an internal move or contingent labor, and Workday bills that analysis in Flex Credits 3.
Its early adopter program, begun with more than 50 customers, produced savings of roughly 30 to 40 percent on tasks such as variance analysis 3. Workday's own January research found that roughly 37 percent of the time employees save with workplace AI goes into correcting and verifying the output 3. The company is selling measured savings by the credit while conceding how much of the saved time goes to checking the machine's work.
That is not a reason to abandon the product; it is the reason the revenue disclosure matters. Adoption is broad: AI drove more than a quarter of new bookings last quarter, and more than 5,500 customers use at least one Workday agent 7. Bookings, though, are not consumption. Flex Credits have no disclosed revenue line of their own.
Cash is draining while debt holds near $3.8B, before the October note sale
- Total debt
- Cash
Data
| Total debt | Cash | |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 '24 | $3.34B | $1.75B |
| Q2 '24 | $3.36B | $1.64B |
| Q3 '24 | $3.36B | $1.31B |
| Q4 '24 | $3.36B | $1.54B |
| Q1 '25 | $3.39B | $0.97B |
| Q2 '25 | $3.78B | $1.26B |
| Q3 '25 | $3.79B | $2.61B |
| Q4 '25 | $3.82B | $1.5B |
| Q1 '26 | $3.81B | $0.56B |
| Q2 '26 | $3.77B | $0.66B |
The vendors selling independence from the system of record are the ones getting paid
The market put a price on the same problem this week. 1Password, which governs what agents can reach without owning any system of record, passed half a billion dollars in annual recurring revenue 6. Monthly use of its developer and AI security tools by non-human identities grew fivefold over the year 6.
Workday itself appears on 1Password's customer list: the company building the agent control plane still buys its credential layer from a security specialist 6. Buyers face the same choice, whether an agent's authority comes from the HR system of record or an independent vendor, and the market has been voting for independence. Pure-play security names surged as the AI trade rotated out of chips; CrowdStrike+8.33% — CrowdStrike, up 8.33 percent today rose more than 8 percent while Workday did not move 89.
The week paid for pure-play security and left Workday flat
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| CrowdStrike | 8.25% |
| Palo Alto Networks | 7.22% |
| Okta | 5.82% |
| Workday | 0% |
The trade is a wait until Flex Credits show up as revenue
None of this says Workday built the wrong thing. The trust layer is the right layer, built at the right moment, and whoever owns it will collect on every agent an enterprise deploys.
Ownership has to show up as disclosed revenue, not as bookings. If Flex Credit consumption and Agent Passport surface in the fiscal third-quarter report, the debt was the cheapest money Workday ever spent. Until then it is a company funding that layer with coupons running to 6.5 percent 4, while its own research concedes how much of the product is verification work.
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