Workday Rising 2026 will bring plenty of conversations around what’s next for planning, from AI-driven decision-making to workforce strategy and the longer-term direction of Adaptive from Workday. With so much happening, the most useful way to build your agenda may be to start with what you want to take away from the event.
Here are a few Adaptive sessions to consider based on where you are today and what you want to explore at Rising.
If you’re looking for the latest in AI and planning innovation
AI continues to expand what finance and planning teams can do with the information and technology already available across their organizations.
If you want to explore how that translates into Adaptive, these two sessions are a good place to start.
Adaptive Decision Intelligence: AI-driven Strategic Insights with Workday Adaptive Planning [26-PLLP1920]
This session focuses on bringing AI-driven strategic insights into Adaptive from Workday, with an emphasis on helping teams accelerate financial decision-making.
For organizations exploring how AI can play a larger role in planning, it offers a look at how intelligence can become part of the decision-making process itself.
Already on Claude or other LLM? Leverage It for Planning & Analysis with Adaptive via MCP. [26-PLP1927]
This session looks at how those existing technologies can connect with Adaptive to support deeper planning and analysis.
Together, these sessions offer two perspectives on the same opportunity: using AI not as a separate initiative, but as another way to extend the systems and planning processes already in place.
If you have Workday HCM and are new to Adaptive
For organizations already using Workday HCM, workforce planning can be a natural starting point for understanding what Adaptive can bring to the broader Workday environment. If you’re interested in moving from workforce data toward more strategic workforce planning, consider pairing these two sessions.
Demo: Dynamic Design – Moving from Workforce Planning to Strategic Impact [26-PLD1979]
This session provides a look at what workforce planning can do for the business and how it can move beyond the mechanics of planning toward more strategic impact.
For teams that are still getting familiar with Adaptive, seeing the experience in action can help make the possibilities much more tangible.
How to Model and Plan for Your Total Workforce With Adaptive Workforce Planning [26-HRP2602]
This session looks at how HCM data can be put to work within Adaptive to model and plan for the total workforce.
Taken together, the two sessions create a useful progression: first see what workforce planning can look like, then hear how an organization has approached putting it into practice. For HCM teams exploring Adaptive, that combination can provide both the vision and the practical context to start thinking about what workforce planning could look like within their own organization.
If you want to see where Adaptive is headed next
If you want a broader view of the future of finance and Adaptive, these two sessions belong on the agenda.
The Always-On CFO: How Agentic AI Redefines Finance at Scale [26-KEY5]
Agentic AI is becoming an increasingly important part of the conversation around the future of finance.
This session looks at what that future could mean at scale and how the role of finance continues to evolve as AI becomes more deeply connected to financial processes and decision-making.
Workday Adaptive Planning: Strategy and Vision [26-PSVPL1917]
For the Adaptive perspective specifically, this is the session to hear directly from the leaders shaping what comes next. Ben Pierce and the Adaptive team will take the stage to discuss the strategy and vision for the future of planning.
Pairing these sessions gives you both sides of the conversation: the broader evolution of finance through agentic AI and the direction of Adaptive itself.
With so much happening, the most useful way to build your agenda may be to start with what you want to take away from the event.
Matt Harvison
Build Your Adaptive Agenda Around the Questions That Matter to You
There is no single Adaptive path through Workday Rising 2026.
For some teams, the priority will be understanding how AI can make financial decision-making faster and more informed. For others, it may be discovering how existing HCM data can become the foundation for strategic workforce planning. And for those already deep into Adaptive, Rising offers an opportunity to look ahead at where the platform and the planning function are going next.
The common thread across all three is the same: planning continues to become more connected, more intelligent, and more closely tied to the decisions organizations need to make.
As you build your Rising agenda, start with the questions you want answered. Then choose the sessions that can help you bring those answers back to your business.
Going to Rising? Come say hello.
Between sessions, stop by Okorio at Booth F11. Whether you’re exploring Adaptive by Workday for the first time or thinking about what’s next for your current environment, we’d love to connect.
