--- title: "Extend Pro: Your Foundation for the Workday Agentic Era" description: A clear breakdown of Sana, Extend and Workday's new AI agent layers, and how organizations can put them to use with Extend Pro. image: https://blog.invisors.com/hubfs/Blog%20Images%20(6).png --- [![BlackLogo](https://blog.invisors.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Logos/BlackLogo.png?width=1200&height=450&name=BlackLogo.png "BlackLogo")](https://www.invisors.com/) - Services - [AI Workday Services](https://www.invisors.com/workday-ai) - [Workday Financial Management](https://www.invisors.com/workday-financial-management) - [Workday Human Capital Management](https://www.invisors.com/workday-human-capital-management) - [Workday Adaptive Planning](https://www.invisors.com/workday-adaptive-planning) - [Workday Analytics](https://www.invisors.com/workday-analytics-deployment) - [Workday Support](https://www.invisors.com/workday-support) - [Workday Extend + Built on Workday](https://www.invisors.com/workday-extend) - [Workday Change Management](https://www.invisors.com/workday-change-management) - Resources - [Not Yet on Workday](https://www.invisors.com/not-yet-on-workday-tools) - [Already Live on Workday](https://www.invisors.com/live-on-workday-tools) - [Customers](https://www.invisors.com/customers) - [Company](https://www.invisors.com/company-overview) - [Overview](https://www.invisors.com/company-overview) - [Methodology](https://www.invisors.com/methodology) - [Careers](https://www.invisors.com/careers) - [Community](https://www.invisors.com/community) - [Events](https://www.invisors.com/events) - [News](https://www.invisors.com/news) - [Contact](https://www.invisors.com/contact) - Services - [AI Workday Services](https://www.invisors.com/workday-ai) - [Workday Financial Management](https://www.invisors.com/workday-financial-management) - [Workday Human Capital Management](https://www.invisors.com/workday-human-capital-management) - [Workday Adaptive Planning](https://www.invisors.com/workday-adaptive-planning) - [Workday Analytics](https://www.invisors.com/workday-analytics-deployment) - [Workday Support](https://www.invisors.com/workday-support) - [Workday Extend + Built on Workday](https://www.invisors.com/workday-extend) - [Workday Change Management](https://www.invisors.com/workday-change-management) - Resources - [Not Yet on Workday](https://www.invisors.com/not-yet-on-workday-tools) - [Already Live on Workday](https://www.invisors.com/live-on-workday-tools) - [Customers](https://www.invisors.com/customers) - [Company](https://www.invisors.com/company-overview) - [Overview](https://www.invisors.com/company-overview) - [Methodology](https://www.invisors.com/methodology) - [Careers](https://www.invisors.com/careers) - [Community](https://www.invisors.com/community) - [Events](https://www.invisors.com/events) - [News](https://www.invisors.com/news) - [Contact](https://www.invisors.com/contact) AI Workday AI # Extend Pro: Your Foundation for the Workday Agentic Era On September 28, 2026 ![Ernie Millares, Director](https://blog.invisors.com/hubfs/Ernie%20Millares%20(1).png) Ernie Millares Connect with a Workday expert ![](https://blog.invisors.com/hubfs/Blog%20Images%20(6).png) #### Sidebar Form Title     Workday has been quicky evolving it's AI offerings over the past year. First, they acquired Flowise, then Sana. At DevCon this year, Workday's keynote put Claude, Gemini and ChatGPT right next to Sana on stage — which left a lot of people wondering the same thing: is Sana getting replaced already? Is Extend still worth investing in? Should we just wait and see where this settles? The short answer: none of it is going away. Workday is currently building out a layered system for AI agents, and Extend Pro is where organizations build and control their own piece of it. Once you understand how the pieces fit together, the pace of change becomes less confusingand more useful. In this post, we'll break down what's actually changing, how Sana, Extend and Workday's new governance tools fit together, and what Extend Pro unlocks for organizations building in this new agentic era. Sana, Extend and the Governance Underneath Before getting into what's new, it helps to define a few terms Workday uses a lot right now, since a lot of the confusion comes from not knowing what each piece actually does. - **Sana:** Workday's newly acquired AI platform, positioned as the “experience” layer. Sana is an enterprise AI platform that can work across your files, emails and meetings, not just your Workday data. Instead of navigating Workday's usual interface, organizations with Sana Enterprise (a separate, additional license) can interact with an agent that pulls from Workday data, files and meetings all in one place. - **Extend:** Workday's build layer, and the platform organizations use to create their own custom apps, pages and integrations inside Workday. With Extend Pro specifically, that same platform now extends to building agents. - **Agent Gateway and Agent System of Record (ASOR):** the governance layer sitting underneath both Sana and Extend. This controls which agents can access which data and keeps an audit trail of everything an agent does, whether it was built in Sana, Extend or somewhere else.  ![](https://blog.invisors.com/hs-fs/hubfs/undefined-Sep-21-2026-04-13-51-3537-PM.png?width=936&height=526&name=undefined-Sep-21-2026-04-13-51-3537-PM.png) At DevCon, Workday's keynote highlighted openness, showing Claude, Gemini and ChatGPT alongside Sana. That led a lot of people to assume Sana and Extend must be on their way out. They're not. Openness just means that any agent, regardless of where it was built or which underlying AI model it uses, still has to run through that same governed layer underneath. Sana and Extend are still the core of how organizations build and experience AI in Workday, they're just no longer the only agents that can connect. Sana, Extend and the governance layer are different floors of the same building, not competing buildings. Openness is the front door being unlocked to more visitors, not a sign the building itself is being torn down. Building Agents in Workday Once you know the layers, the next question is: how does an organization actually build an agent? There are three paths, depending on which platform an organization is working in:   ![](https://blog.invisors.com/hs-fs/hubfs/undefined-Sep-21-2026-03-59-38-7614-PM.png?width=936&height=525&name=undefined-Sep-21-2026-03-59-38-7614-PM.png) - Developer Agent: A plain-English prompt can generate an entire app end to end: the objects, the pages and even the security domains.  - Extend Core: Building an agent manually, using metadata and files, similar to how custom objects or pages are already built in Extend today, whether by an internal team or a partner like Invisors.  - Sana Agent Builder: Organizations describe what they want in plain language, and the tool builds it.    Extend Pro is where all three will come together as the most versatile path. Organizations can use it to build agents, traditional custom apps and integrations they're already running in Workday.  That being said, an agent is only as good as the instructions it's given. Developer Agent will happily build exactly what it's told to, even if that means missing a field, skipping an approval step or building more than what's needed. An approval layer is necessary to define the real requirements and test what gets built, the same way someone would review any new app before rolling it out. This is why governance matters, no matter which path is used to build.  With Agent Gateway, organizations decide exactly what each agent can access. An agent can work with payroll data, for instance, without being given access to compensation data more broadly. Because of that, most agent tools also build in a human-in-the-loop step: before a change is made, a person sees what's about to happen and must approve it first. ASOR then keeps an audit trail of what the agent did, the same way Workday already tracks activity for an integration system user.  ![](https://blog.invisors.com/hs-fs/hubfs/undefined-Sep-21-2026-04-08-48-1925-PM.png?width=936&height=525&name=undefined-Sep-21-2026-04-08-48-1925-PM.png) Extend Essentials or Extend Core both have the capability to build fully functional apps, business processes and orchestrations. What they don't include is Developer Agent or the ability to build and govern agents. In the agentic era, that's the real difference between the two tiers.   Getting Started  Here's where things stand today: - Live: Agent System of Record (GA), the BP Optimize agent (GA), the self-service agent and Developer Copilot for Orchestrate (GA with Extend Pro)  - Early adopter: Agent Gateway, Developer Agent, Agent Builder, Agent Ready Tools (aka MCP) (GA 2026R2)  - On the roadmap: Agent Passport and agent-to-agent handoff (beyond R2)  The recommendation: don't wait for GA. Start with the governed platform now, since Extend and ASOR are the foundation regardless of which agents an organization ends up using and keep that governance anchored in Workday even as the underlying AI model stays swappable. None of this requires having every answer today. The pieces that matter most, a governed foundation and a clear picture of what's live versus what's coming, are already available to build on now. Wondering if you are getting left behind in the agentic era? Want to see how Invisors is using Workday’s AI platform with our customers?  Fill out the form to schedule time with our team, ask any questions you have and get a free demo of what you can unlock with Workday [Extend Pro](https://www.invisors.com/workday-extend)! ### Connect with our Workday Experts #### The form title goes here ### Learn more about Extend Pro + Workday AI ##### About the Author ![Ernie Millares, Director](https://blog.invisors.com/hubfs/Ernie%20Millares%20(1).png) ###### Ernie Millares, Director Ernie joined Invisors in 2023 and is now a Director on the Tooling team, with a focus on our Extend practice. As Workday's Extend Leader, Ernie demonstrates how to get the most out of Workday's Cloud Platform, whether through integrations and orchestrations or building custom apps with agents and Extend. ## More Workday AI Resources [![On Demand Webinar](https://blog.invisors.com/hubfs/Ondemand%20Webinar.png)](https://resources.invisors.com/extend-webinar-everything-agentic-runs-on-extend-pro-invisors) [On-Demand Webinar](https://resources.invisors.com/extend-webinar-everything-agentic-runs-on-extend-pro-invisors) [Everything Agentic Runs on Workday Extend Pro](https://resources.invisors.com/extend-webinar-everything-agentic-runs-on-extend-pro-invisors) [Invisors Blog](https://blog.invisors.com/blog/what-is-the-workday-deployment-agent-ai-for-workday-consultants) [Blog](https://blog.invisors.com/blog/what-is-the-workday-deployment-agent-ai-for-workday-consultants) [Workday Deployment Agent: How AI is Changing Workday Support](https://blog.invisors.com/blog/what-is-the-workday-deployment-agent-ai-for-workday-consultants) [Invisors Blog](https://blog.invisors.com/blog/workday-extend-vs-workday-integrations) [Blog](https://blog.invisors.com/blog/workday-extend-vs-workday-integrations) [Workday Extend vs. Workday Integrations: Pick Your Perfect Match](https://blog.invisors.com/blog/workday-extend-vs-workday-integrations) [![On Demand Webinar](https://blog.invisors.com/hubfs/Ondemand%20Webinar.png)](https://resources.invisors.com/enabling-asor-and-agents-webinar) [On-Demand Webinar](https://resources.invisors.com/enabling-asor-and-agents-webinar) [Enabling ASOR and Agents: Workday AI](https://resources.invisors.com/enabling-asor-and-agents-webinar) [Invisors Guide](https://resources.invisors.com/extend-custom-built-apps-that-run-on-workday) [Guide](https://resources.invisors.com/extend-custom-built-apps-that-run-on-workday) [Workday Extend enables custom applications to be built on Workday](https://resources.invisors.com/extend-custom-built-apps-that-run-on-workday) [Invisors Guide](https://www.invisors.com/workday-ai#ai-readiness-assessment) [Guide](https://www.invisors.com/workday-ai#ai-readiness-assessment) [Get started with a Workday AI Readiness Assessment](https://www.invisors.com/workday-ai#ai-readiness-assessment) ### Workday Extend Pro FAQs #### How does Workday Extend Pro connect to Workday AI? Extend Pro is the "build your own" layer within Workday's larger AI strategy, where organizations can create their own custom agents. Workday's broader AI approach also includes ready-to-use tools, like Sana's enterprise assistant and prebuilt agents such as the payroll or BP Optimize agent, along with a shared governance layer that secures and tracks every agent no matter where it was built. #### What technology powers Workday AI agents? Workday's agent tools are built on a mix of its own acquisitions and underlying AI models rather than one single piece of technology. The agent-building platform inside Extend traces back to Flowise, a company Workday acquired and repurposed as the foundation for building agents. The models running behind the scenes are Workday's own versions of major AI models, so even when a familiar model name is selected, what's actually running is Workday's version of it rather than the model in its original form.  #### How does Workday's Developer Agent create apps? Developer Agent builds an entire app from a plain-language description, generating the objects, pages and security domains it needs along the way. It runs on Claude Code as its underlying engine and can be used either directly through Workday's own developer tools or through an external coding environment like VS Code, letting a team work from whichever setup they already use while Developer Agent handles the actual build. #### How much does it cost to build AI agents in Workday? Pricing for Workday's AI agent tools currently runs through flex credits rather than a flat fee. Building agents with Developer Agent isn't separately charged right now, though usage is determined in the background. Once agents are live and being used day to day, that usage draws from an organization's flex credit balance, and subscribing to Extend or Sana increases the amount of flex credits included before any charges apply. Ready to talk about your unique deployment needs? #### Download the guide ![Invisors\_footer\_Logo](https://blog.invisors.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Invisors_footer_Logo.png?width=606&name=Invisors_footer_Logo.png "Invisors_footer_Logo") Elevating Perspective + Transforming Results A global consultancy + a Workday Certified Services Partner. Growing because we have happy customers + seasoned Workday consultants. 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