Workday, Inc. is a U.S. enterprise-software company providing cloud-based human-resources and financial-management applications, including AI-driven tools for applicant screening and talent management. It was founded in 2005 by Dave Duffield and Aneel Bhusri and is headquartered in Pleasanton, California. In AI policy its significance comes less from its models than from its role as the defendant in a leading employment-discrimination case testing whether the vendor of an automated hiring tool — rather than only the employers that deploy it — can be held directly liable for discriminatory outcomes.
Products and AI use
Workday's platform is used by large employers to manage recruiting, hiring, payroll, and workforce planning. Its applicant-screening features rank, filter, and recommend candidates, and the company has expanded automated and AI-assisted functionality across its HR suite. Because a single screening tool is sold to thousands of employers, the design and training of that tool can shape hiring outcomes across a large population of applicants — the fact pattern at the center of the litigation below.
Mobley v. Workday
Workday is the defendant in *Mobley v. Workday, Inc.*, a federal employment-discrimination class action in the Northern District of California. The plaintiff, Derek Mobley, alleges that Workday's AI screening system rejected him from more than 100 jobs and disproportionately disadvantaged applicants who are Black, over 40, or have disclosed disabilities, with claims under Title VII, the ADA, and the ADEA. In July 2024 the court denied Workday's first motion to dismiss, allowing it to be sued as an "employer" or "agent" on the theory that it exercised hiring authority delegated by deploying employers. In May 2025 the court granted class certification — the first AI-discrimination class certification in the United States — and Workday appealed elements of the ruling to the Ninth Circuit, with discovery ongoing as of 2026. If the vendor-liability theory is sustained, it would expand the set of potential defendants in AI-hiring cases to the vendors of screening tools, not only the employers that use them.
Relationships
- litigates: Mobley v. Workday, Inc. — defendant; case turns on vendor liability for an automated hiring tool.
- deploys-in: Financial Services — AI Deployment, Retail — AI Deployment — HR software used across large-employer sectors.
- related: AI Labor Disruption, Professional Services AI Adoption