Is AI Changing How Humans Connect? A Conversation with Workday CEO

Without a sense of community, it's transactional. They'll go to the next job where they can get maybe something better on their resume or a little bit more money. But when they're part of a community and feel really engaged with the company, they, they tend to stay longer. If you are a business leader navigating the integration of AI across your organization, you may be keeping a close eye on a complex new paradox: how to unlock incredible gains in efficiency without letting genuine human connection erode. Welcome to the Future of Work Podcast. Today you're going to hear from Workday's Chief Impact Officer, Carrie Varachieh, and co-founder, CEO, and chair of Workday, Aneel Bhusri, on how to overcome this cultural erosion and find the right balance for your organization. Live from the Human Algorithm Summit, the two unpack the Human Connection Workplace Index, new global research from Workday that maps how AI is reshaping workplace culture. Let's hear from Carrie and Aneel on how leaders can leverage AI's speed without losing the human touch. This is a really special day for us, as you know, because we are— the Workday Foundation is launching the Human Connection Workplace Index. And this first report is basically our baseline, and we plan to track changes across worker sentiment every 6 months as AI becomes more integrated into every part of our lives at home and at work. In the first survey, we looked at data from 2,100, uh, workers within the Fortune 500 and across many industries globally, and we've really seen a paradox emerge. We found that AI is delivering in really incredible ways. According to the research, employee productivity and confidence are Soaring. 86% of employees say that using AI has helped them become more productive. Show of hands, has AI helped you become more productive? Yes. Nearly two-thirds say that AI has increased their confidence to succeed in future roles. And AI is easing employee burnout, which was a little surprising to me. The majority of employees agree that since they started using AI, their stress or burnout risk has decreased. And that's massive. But there are also some major warning signs that are emerging, and we need to address them before they begin to impact our employees and the bottom line. So some examples: 37% of employees prefer brainstorming with AI rather than a human colleague for fear of judgment. One-third of workers are rarely or never having conversations with colleagues that go beyond transactional work-related tasks in a given week. And 21% of Gen Z respondents report feeling more lonely since AI tools were introduced into the workplace. So, Aneel, you built Workday from the beginning with employees as our number one core value. What did that mean to you and Dave when you founded the company, and why do you think that that philosophy matters even more as AI changes how work gets done? When I think about all the great companies, past, present, future, they're all based on having a great employee culture. And many years ago in the Best Places to Work survey, they actually tracked, you know, the stock price performance of companies that had great cultures versus those that didn't. Stark difference, right? So it's not just the right thing to do, it's also, it's also good business. And we always had this belief: you're in business to serve your customers. But how many companies do you know that have unhappy employees and happy customers? The two just don't go together. You want to have happy customers, which is the goal for all businesses, you got to first start with happy employees. Those happy employees and the rest of our value system is They innovate. They do it with integrity. They have fun. If you do it the right way, it leads to profitability. But profitability has never been a core value. It's the outcome of, of doing things the right way. So employees have always been front and center. So much of what happens that's great at a company is serendipity. It's relationships. It's getting to know your colleagues. It's mentorship. I love that you just mentioned serendipity because So much goodness comes from those moments where we just bump into someone in the hallway and a new idea emerges. Our research suggests that some workers are drawn to AI not only because it's really helpful to them as a powerful tool, but because it can feel socially frictionless. It doesn't judge or interrupt or disagree in the same way that a person might. And our research found that in moments of work place conflict or disagreement, 29% of employees prefer to use AI to draft a written response rather than speaking to the person directly. So how should leaders think about difference, uh, the difference between removing unnecessary friction and preserving the kind of human friction that really makes teams stronger? Yeah, I, I mean, I think getting advice from AI on how to respond is a good tool, but it doesn't replace that human-to-human interaction. There's nothing that replaces that. I went back, I was CEO for 15 years, I left, retired, and came back in. But one of the things about coming back in and trying to figure out how to run it differently, or differently, or how before, is I watched a lot of Steve Jobs videos. And of course, he was a product genius. He was also a management genius. He has one particular video where he talks about how great ideas are the result of the friction. And he talked about how rocks, these rough rocks, you put them into a machine and they come out all polished. And that's what happens with ideas. People come together, everybody's got a rough part of it, but over time, that idea gets polished by that human interaction. And I've seen it over and over again in my life. And I don't think you get that from AI. The best ideas do not come with talking to a, you know, to a prompt line. They come from pushing each other to make, you know, better decisions, look for a better way to do something. And that's how, at least in the tech world, that's how all the great products were built. Yeah, I love that analogy of the rocks together. And I feel like maintaining or imparting on younger workers or early career professionals this idea of social courage and having face-to-face conversations, even if they might seem difficult, is such an important part of a thriving business. And I think that you do a great job of encouraging that in our culture. In a constructive way, right? Of course. We want to be constructive and respectful, but the best ideas don't come from talking to AI. They come from interacting with other humans and pushing each other to be our best. And the best idea wins, the best concept wins. And that only can happen in human-human interaction. And I'm a technologist. I've been a technologist my entire career. I think AI is a very powerful tool, but it's a tool. It's not a replacement for human interaction. Hear, hear. Thank you for that. I think everyone in this audience agrees with that statement. AI can provide us with quick feedback and seemingly neutral feedback, but human feedback brings context and accountability and experience and empathy. As a leader, as AI becomes a more common source of input for all of us, how should managers help employees understand where AI is helpful and where human judgment really still matters most? You know, I think about, like, all the world's knowledge is now not at our fingertips in search, where we would still have to be moving around trying to figure out if that search answer was the right one. But now when we ask a question of AI, we get a really good answer back, like very descriptive. And so it's unleashing all this knowledge. And so to me, what that means is that when you have conversations as a team, everyone is more knowledgeable than they were without AI. And so you have conversations at a much higher level and you can debate and you can have discussion and have interaction on topics where everybody's at a much, much higher level of knowledge on that topic than they were before. And so that's where I think AI is incredible. But I actually think if we look at AI in the right ways where it's this leveler that gets everybody to the same level level of knowledge, whether you have it or you can access it, then we apply our human judgment and creativity to really create something special. That's where I think that's the best outcome for AI, is it makes us all better. Yeah. So one of the things that our research uncovered is that younger workers may be experiencing the intersection of AI and digital communication and workplace loneliness in especially acute ways. So we found that nearly 20% of Gen Z report feeling lonely at work often or very often. 39% find it difficult to make friends at work. And 20% of Gen Z have taken time off due to loneliness or social isolation in the past year. But we know this is not just a Gen Z issue. What should leaders learn from these signals about how connection, mentorship, and belonging need to evolve for the entire workforce? Well, I, I first say that I think it's easy to blame it on AI. I don't— I, I think it all started with social media where, um, you know, I remember growing up and I never worried about FOMO because I didn't know what, what else was going on, right? But I think that started that disengagement from, uh, from in-person relationships. You know, I, I don't think actually AI is, is is a problem if you use the right way, right? So if you're a young employee, make sure you find a mentor. Make sure you have work colleagues that you go out for a drink with or a coffee with. Don't just be isolated and interact through technology. And I, I think the combination of work from home because of COVID social media, texting, AI all together created a new generation of folks who grew up differently than maybe we grew up, where, you know, if you wanted to talk to someone, you just talk to them because there was no other way to talk to them, right? You know, I use AI for gardening. I'm a hydroponic gardener. There's— I couldn't find a soul on the planet that knows as much as AI about that topic. But that's, that's a really good learning use case. When I want to talk about you know, how do I raise my 16-year-old daughter? I don't use AI, right? I mean, I try to figure that out on my own because that's a person-to-person connection. So it's using AI for what AI is good at. Yeah, I like that a lot. I want to be clear that our research does not prove causality or correlation at all on these stats. It's our baseline. And so we're just going to track it over time and see if we see any changes. But on that, I think for all of us in the audience, we got to get the young folks to want to be in the office and build relationships. It'll be better for them their entire lives. Yeah, you bring up something. We're social creatures. Oh, for sure. Yes. I think you bring up something so important because even once those young people come into the office, there has been research done that they still prefer to send 6 or 7 emails versus have a face-to-face conversation with someone. And so how do you, as a leader or as a dad of a 16-year-old, encourage social courage so that they have the wherewithal to start an in-person conversation that might seem challenging? That's a tough one, because I think if I was— I mean, I'm an introvert, so if these technologies were available when I was young, I might have defaulted to that too. And so you got to kind of fight that introverted nature and just say, I'm going to be better by getting to know the people I work with. And in many cases, those interactions don't have to be in the office. You know, play sports, you know, go out for a walk, get a coffee, get to know the people you work with. And you know that about Workday. Yes. Very important to me that when we have someone who's at Workday, I want to know the whole person. I just don't want to know what they do at work. And I think that's That's the way to encourage it, is get to know the whole person, get to know who they are, and you'll find ways to connect that you never thought about before. Yeah. So clearly you see connection as a business advantage, but many CEOs don't yet. And as a CEO who has to juggle multiple priorities and trade-offs, how do you justify investments in efforts to create a workplace culture of trust and fun and connection? Well, so yesterday I spent the day just walking around the halls, in the lunchroom. I hadn't been back for a couple years. I go in the lunchroom and it creates this sense of community. And if you're a CEO, you want people to stay with you, the good people. You want them to stay as long as you can possibly keep them. Without a sense of community, it's transactional. They'll go to the next job where they can get maybe something better on their resume or a little bit more money. But when they're part of a community and feel really engaged with the company, they tend to they tend to stay longer. I mean, that's proven. I see it every day. And the companies— I'd encourage some of the younger entrepreneurs, the companies that are all remote, they hit a bump in the road, the top people leave because they're not connected to the company. They don't say like, "Now these are my 5 best buddies. I got to stay at the company because I want to hang out with these folks." Like, "Nope, I'm going to go find another job." And that transactional nature can be only overcome by creating a community. Frankly, having fun. Yeah. Right? Fun is a core value for a reason at Workday. Yes, trust me. I was there in the early days when Halloween was no joke. I mean, we really were serious about it. Yeah. Yeah. And you've done a really great job of continuing that sense of fun as the company has grown to, you know, 20,000 Workmates. I mean, we have more than 100 work clubs that are, you know, clubs where people just have a shared love of something, and it could be juggling, and it could be gardening, hydroponic gardening. Have you— Have you joined that club yet? Is there, is that that club? I don't know. Maybe I'll create one. Yeah. And so I think you've really done a great job as we've grown of keeping that. I try. I try. Well, it's going back to the founding principles of Workday. My co-founder and I talked about it. People who are having fun and liking the people they work with, which is why employees are number one. And Dave and I interviewed the first 500 people, as you know, to make sure they were cultural fits. Not that they were great at sales or marketing developed. Will they fit into the culture? Were they a we person or an I person? Were they a shiny penny person that jumped around, or were they really going to be committed for many years? Do they laugh at our bad jokes? You know, all these kind of things. But people have fun and are engaged, they do their best work, right? They do their best work. People that are tired and lonely and isolated and not having fun, they don't give you— they don't bring their best selves to work. It's that simple. Yeah. Okay. So to close, as someone who has spent your entire career building amazing technology companies, how should we think about designing AI in ways that strengthen our connection to one another rather than replace it? I don't know the answer to that question other than AI is a tool, not a— it's, it's, it's not going to— if we let it, it will replace a lot of us in the room. And I think that's a terrible solution. If it's a tool that helps us do our work better, that frees up time to do more human interaction and helps us solve problems, but not solve communication and relationships, right? It's a problem-solving engine like we've never seen before. It's like you got Einstein at your fingertips, but Einstein might not have— might have been a genius physicist. I don't know if he was great at relationships, you know, who knows. We have to be great at relationships. We have to be great at those connections. And I think that's a huge part of using AI for the right reasons. It's incredible technology. How it plays out, I'm nervous about job displacement. And, you know, for everyone in the room, we have to figure out how to bring everybody along as this technology continues to take hold and it's gonna replace some of the rote work that gets done, which can be okay. It's happened in the past. It happened with cloud, it happened with every other generation of technology. This one's a little different. So we just have to bring people along. And I think the people that will succeed in this new generation will be curious. They'll be constant learners, they'll be empathetic, they'll be connectors. But if you're just a programmer and that's all you want to do, well, it's going to be tough because Claude Code's really good at programming. So you got to figure out what your skill set is beyond just being a coder. Yeah, I agree. I think that I use AI every day with joy and amazement. It's an incredible tool, but it can't replace the conversation that you and I just had. So thank you for your time today, Anil. Well, you're awesome, Carrie. Thank you. Thank you.