Workday CEO Calls Narrative That AI is Killing Software 'Overblown'

Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach on Thursday tried to ease worries that AI is destroying software business models. From a report: "It's an overblown narrative, and it's not true," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box" from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, calling AI a tailwind and "absolutely not a headwind" for the company.

Software stocks have sold off in recent months on concerns that new AI tools will upend the sector and displace longstanding and recurring businesses that once fueled big profits. Workday shares lost 17% last year and have sunk another 15% since the start of 2026.

You know it's true

[RitchCraft]

You know something is true when a CEO comes out and says it's not true. #Microslop anyone?

Re:

[Calydor]

Well, one CEO says it's true that AI is taking over everything, another says it's true that AI is overblown. Now what do we do?

Re:

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I think it's a bubble. And in the case of Workday's shitty ATS that can't even read a resume and requires you to *completely retype your resume into a web form* I think their AI is a failure.

Re:

[RitchCraft]

Just like in math, cancel them out.

It really is a conundrum

[ebunga]

The people selling AI say its all roses and you should spend money on AI... please spend money on AI... we spent a trillion dollars on this please for the love of god use AI. The people that would benefit from AI but aren't selling AI say it's overblown. I wonder who we should trust here indeed.

Re:

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Is he willing to hire the over 55 and under 30 software engineers who can't find a job to save their lives?

Workday

[SlashbotAgent]

How did Workday get so big? Is it following the WeWork trajectory?

Re:

[larryjoe]

How did Workday get so big? Is it following the WeWork trajectory?

One could view AI as just another software paradigm. Just like SaaS killed off the previous software paradigm, AI can be viewed as just the next software paradigm that kills off the previous one. Twenty years from now, we'll be talking about how today's AI corporate software is being killed off by the follow-up version, which could be the next gen AI software.

Re:

[SlashbotAgent]

Your comment doesn't relate, not even tangentially, to my question.

My question had nothing to do with AI. I asked how Workday had grown to such a large(market cap.) company.

Re:

[ebunga]

It was its founder's *second* HR/HCM software company, so they already knew what to do. However, instead of focusing on big companies that can afford big enterprise apps and all the resources that needs, they did it ...as a Service... which meant all levels of businesses could use whatever the hell it is Workday does for businesses. So, if you get businesses locked in to your platform and keep that rolling for a couple of decades, you'll end up with a large company with a continuous cash flow.

Re:

[Innovation]

That's about right. Duffield knew what he was doing and when Oracle did a hostile takeover of his company he had a pile of cash, a wealth of knowledge and a lot of motivation to take the market back from Oracle.

by metastasizing

[jizmonkey]

The worst part of Workday is that they transmit your personal information to pretty much every other company out there. Ever notice that when you go to Docusign it knows all the e-mail addresses of your company employees? Have you ever gotten calls on your personal cell phone from vendors you have absolutely not given the number to? Have you noticed that you start getting very specific spam IMMEDIATELY after joining a new company and you haven't even updated your linkedin yet? The privacy violations are out

Hypemongers and pundits only know two...

[MpVpRb]

...possibilities, something is either growing or dying
Reality is more complex and is getting increasingly unpredictable
My low confidence prediction is that expert programmers will make good use of AI tools
The clueless will use AI to make simple, kinda crappy, but good enough simple stuff
There will always be special applications where hand coding is needed

This is a Non-Article

[eepok]

Here's the ENTIRETY of what Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach is quoted to have said in the article.

* “It’s an overblown narrative, and it’s not true,”
* “absolutely not a headwind”
* “We are uniquely positioned to be one of the AI winners in the enterprise because of our incumbency, and lastly, because of the trust we get from our customers,”

So the CEO of a company, the person hired to continually convince people to buy their stock, said that their financial investme

Tech CEO logic fail - sad.

[fahrbot-bot]

"It's an overblown narrative, and it's not true,"

"Overblown" implies there's some truth which contradicts with "not true" which don't work together with "and".
Embarrassing for a Tech CEO, seems like Eschenbach needs a a refresher on "True", "False" and "And".

We use Workday at my university

[93 Escort Wagon]

It's a bloated, slow, badly-designed POS. If this guy is the CEO, I think you'd be smart to take the opposite position of anything he states.

Re:

[Dragonslicer]

My company switched to Workday about a year ago. It's generally less shitty than what we had before, but it still isn't good. They're in a market where less shitty is good enough because none of the options are good.