Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach: AI is a tailwind for us, 'absolutely not' a headwind

Watch on YouTube ↗  |  January 22, 2026 at 13:15  |  6:06  |  CNBC
Speakers
Carl Eschenbach — CEO, Workday, Inc.
Andrew Ross Sorkin — Co-Anchor, Squawk Box
Becky Quick — Co-Anchor, Squawk Box

Summary

Carl Eschenbach, CEO of Workday, joins CNBC at Davos to discuss AI's impact on Workday and the broader workforce. He says AI is a tailwind rather than a headwind, rebutting the market narrative that AI will disintermediate mature enterprise software. He points to Workday's customer base, curated data, trust, and platform strategy as competitive advantages. The interview also includes a host challenge that AI tools could make it easier for competitors to build Workday-like products.

  • Davos discussion focuses on AI and the future of work.
  • Workday CEO describes workforce optimization used to fund AI investment.
  • Eschenbach says Workday's AI innovation and hiring are accelerating.
  • He calls the AI disintermediation narrative overblown and untrue.
  • He cites customer scale, retention, curated data, and trust as moats.
  • Host raises risk that AI could lower barriers to building competing HR software.
  • Workday stock had fallen about 27% over the past year amid growth concerns.
Ideas
Carl Eschenbach CEO, Workday, Inc. 1:48
AI is a tailwind, not headwind
Eschenbach argues the market narrative that AI will disintermediate or displace mature software companies like Workday is overblown and untrue. He says Workday is uniquely positioned as an enterprise AI winner because of its incumbency, 11,000 customers, 65% of the Fortune 500, high retention, 75 million users, highly curated people and money data, and customer trust. Customers are asking Workday to embed more AI into its platform rather than replace it, and the company is investing in AI talent, first-party agents, and a platform strategy for third-party agents after last year's workforce optimization.
WDAY HIGH
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This CNBC video, published January 22, 2026, features Carl Eschenbach discussing WDAY. 1 trade idea extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: Carl Eschenbach  · Tickers: WDAY