Planning Agent: Data Exploration
Preview Date: 2025-11-21.
With this release, we introduce the Planning Agent, a new AI-powered assistant that transforms how you interact with your data in Workday Adaptive Planning. The first available agent skill, Data Exploration, uses Generative and Conversational AI to provide contextual analysis and insights on open matrix reports. You can now use natural language prompts or guided questions to instantly summarize data, identify trends, detect anomalies, and perform deep variance analysis.
Business Benefits
This feature helps you:
- Drastically reduce the time spent manually searching for and calculating the drivers of variances, allowing you to focus on strategic interpretation and action.
- Enable business users, budget owners, and other stakeholders to conduct their own sophisticated analyses without relying on FP&A or system administrators, fostering broader data literacy.
- Gain immediate, contextual insights to quickly identify root causes, surface trends, and drive more informed decisions across your organization.
- Streamline the creation of presentations by instantly generating narrative summaries and visualizations that explain key business drivers.
Changes
When viewing a matrix report, you'll find a new
Ask Workday
icon in the toolbar, which opens the Data Exploration
sidebar. From here, you can:
- Use pre-defined prompts likeSummarize this reportandDetect anomaliesor type open-ended questions to analyze your data.
- Receive AI-generated responses that include narrative summaries, charts, and tables.
- Change the chart type for visualizations and hover over data points for more detail.
- Download summaries and visualizations directly to a PowerPoint presentation.
The Data Exploration skill includes a powerful variance analysis capability that allows you to:
- Automatically identify the top five variances in a report or set custom thresholds to highlight significant variances.
- Analyze a variance to instantly determine the primary dimensions (like Cost Center or Product) driving the result.
- Break down a variance by other contributing dimensions to explore it from every angle.
What Do I Need to Do?
To request this feature, contact your Named Support Contact (NSC) to submit a Workday Customer Care request. After confirming that you're eligible, we'll enable the feature.
To use the Planning Agent, an administrator must assign you the
Access Ask Workday for Adaptive Planning
permission.What Happens If I Do Nothing?
If you do nothing, you won't have the required permission. The
Ask Workday
icon won't be visible on matrix reports, and you won't be able to use the Data Exploration feature. Change Log
Planning Agent: Data Exploration
We update this note to inform you:
- The feature is now available to everyone in preview. SeePlanning Agent: Data Exploration 2026R1 release notes.
- We removed the auto-completed suggestions that display when you place your cursor in the Ask Workday for Adaptive Planning prompt. You can no longer select the pre-defined prompts. This capability was available in the limited availability version.
Planning Agent: Data Exploration
We correct this note to inform you that this feature is currently released as limited availability. Accordingly, we have updated the
What Do I Need to Do?
section to include information about how to request the feature.