CoE AI in 20 Minutes
Helping customers make sense of Workday's fast-growing agent landscape — and knowing where the CoE AI and Kainos AI Navigator add value.
Welcome
Workday is releasing agents at pace. Some are generally available today; more land every release. Customers are being asked to form a point of view on AI — and they're turning to us for guidance.
This module gives every person in the Workday Practice the same starting point: what the CoE AI is here to do, what the agent landscape actually looks like, and how the Kainos AI Navigator helps customers move from confusion to confidence.
Learning objectives
What is the CoE AI?
The Centre of Expertise for AI is the part of the Kainos Workday Practice that turns AI from a buzzword into something customers can buy, deploy and trust. It brings together product knowledge, delivery patterns and commercial positioning in one place.
What it does
- Owns the Kainos point-of-view on AI in the Workday ecosystem.
- Curates the playbooks, guardrails and reference patterns teams reuse on accounts.
- Enables consultants and leaders to sell, scope and deliver AI-led engagements.
- Partners with Emerging Initiatives on Kainos-built AI capabilities where a custom build is the right answer.
What it is not
- A delivery team that replaces your engagement — it enables yours.
- A generic AI consultancy — scope is Workday, the data, process and integrations around it.
- A permanent central owner of every AI conversation — we upskill everyone, then step back.
The CoE AI exists so that every Workday Practice team can confidently bring AI into customer conversations — not so one team does it on everyone's behalf.
The Workday agent landscape
Workday doesn't ship a single AI product. It ships a growing portfolio of agents — purpose-built AI capabilities that run inside the customer's tenant, targeting specific jobs to be done in HCM, Finance, Planning and beyond.
Available today — examples
Coming next — examples from the roadmap
The roadmap moves every release. The CoE AI maintains the current list of what's GA, what's in early access, and what's coming next. Always check the current landscape before a customer meeting — don't rely on memory.
Use, adapt, or build?
Every customer AI conversation comes back to the same three questions. Getting these right is the core skill we're upskilling the Practice on.
- Use — is there a Workday agent that's already GA for this need? If yes, adoption is the job.
- Adapt — is the need close to something GA or on the near-term roadmap? We prepare the customer's data and process, bridge with related agents, and time delivery to the roadmap.
- Build — is the need genuinely outside what Workday will cover? Then we scope a custom build via Sana Agent Builder or a Kainos-delivered capability.
Lead with use. Most customer "AI needs" have a GA agent that already addresses them — or will soon. Custom build is the right answer less often than customers expect, and the CoE AI helps teams tell the difference.
What this means for you
If you are in delivery
Expect agents to appear in scope on more engagements. You don't need to be a specialist on day one, but you do need to know what an agent is, which are GA today, and when to bring in a CoE AI SME.
If you are customer-facing or commercial
You are the first conversation. Use the "use, adapt or build" framing above and route qualified interest into the CoE AI pipeline.
If you lead a team
Make sure your people complete Tier 1 (this module), and flag candidates for Tier 2 and Tier 3 based on account need. Enablement is a staffing advantage.
Check your understanding
Three questions. Each explains why every answer is right or wrong — the reasoning matters more than the score.
Next steps
Pick the path that matches your role. Deeper modules will be published over the coming weeks.
- All audiences: complete this module and mark it done in your learning record.
- Customer Success, Sales, EMs: Module 4 — Positioning with customers.
- HCM & Integrations consultants: Module 2 — Agent landscape deep dive and Module 8 — Adoption & deployment playbook.
- Architects & CoE AI core: Module 11 — When to build: Sana Agent Builder and custom patterns.
- Leaders: book a 30-minute briefing with the CoE AI lead.