Workday to keep expanding Indian workforce, deepen AI investments, executive says

By Praveen Paramasivam and Akash Sriram

BENGALURU, May 19 (Reuters) - Workday would sustain the pace of workforce expansion in India, a top ‌executive said on Tuesday, as the human resources and enterprise ‌software maker deepens investments in artificial intelligence and opens new offices.

India is home to more ​than half of all global capability centres as companies prefer its large skilled workforce, lower operating costs and rising ability to support high-value jobs across technology, finance and engineering.

Workday has offices in financial capital Mumbai and two more ‌cities with plans to expand ⁠to Delhi and Bengaluru. Its headcount in the Asian country has more than doubled over 12 to 14 months ⁠to about 1,300 employees.

"We would continue (hiring) at the same pace," Sunil Jose, president of Workday India, told Reuters.

Jose did not give a timeline for opening ​up offices ​in Bengaluru and Delhi.

Workday serves more ​than 1,800 customers in India, ‌of the 11,500 globally that include Target, Netflix and Nvidia.

AI USE CASES

Workday would invest more in artificial intelligence across both internal operations and customer-facing products, Jose said, without disclosing financial details.

He said customers are increasingly deploying Workday's AI agents across payroll, hiring, finance and expense-management workflows to automate repetitive ‌tasks, with one global retailer reducing hiring ​times by 70%. He did not name ​the retailer.

Automated processes are enabling ​companies to quicken nearly two-thirds of tasks that once ‌required a significant amount of time, he ​said.

Global centres in ​India have been hiring workers with advanced AI and data skills as multinational firms ramp up hiring for generative AI and automation ​roles.

This comes amid a ‌slump in software and services stocks on concerns AI tools could ​hurt traditional business models.

(Reporting by Praveen Paramasivam and Akash Sriram ​in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)