10 Agentic Capabilities for Technology & Media

eBook

Scaling Talent, Content, and Revenue with Agentic AI

2 10 Agentic Capabilities for Technology & Media

How agentic capabilities can help turn talent, content, and revenue operations into a competitive advantage Technology and media organizations operate in an environment where speed, innovation, and margin are deeply connected. A delayed engineering hire can slow a product launch. Outdated skills data can limit internal mobility just as priorities shift. A missed renewal or rights term can erode revenue. Fragmented payroll, policy, and finance processes can pull high-value talent away from the work that differentiates the business.

Agentic capabilities can offer a new way to tackle these challenges. By understanding business context, guiding actions, surfacing risks, and automating routine work, they can help organizations connect the processes that determine how quickly they can move from strategy to product, content, and growth.

This eBook explores 10 high-impact agentic capabilities for Technology and Media. Some help organizations attract, develop, retain, and redeploy scarce talent. Others help protect revenue, improve financial visibility, reduce operational friction, and increase the value of their Workday investment.

One industry, two operating models Technology and media organizations share a need to innovate quickly, but the value of agentic AI can look different in practice.

• Technology organizations often focus on scarce AI, engineering, product, and go-to-market talent; rapid product cycles; subscription and usage-based revenue; and scalable operating models.

• Media organizations frequently manage content and production schedules, distributed creative and frontline workforces, complex rights and licensing terms, release windows, and varied revenue streams.

Many organizations span both models. A streaming platform, for example, may need to recruit technical talent, manage creators and production crews, protect rights and subscription revenue, and operate a global digital business.

The agentic capabilities in this eBook can help connect these needs into a more agile operating environment. Examples in each chapter show how their impact can differ based on the operating environment.

Note: Performance figures referenced in this eBook are modeled estimates based on early Workday customer usage of its agentic capabilities and related assumptions, unless otherwise noted. Actual results will vary based on organizational context, process design, data readiness, and deployment scope.

1. Faster Hiring for Scarce Talent

The competition for AI, engineering, product, data, and creative talent is intense. Yet recruiters and hiring managers often work across fragmented systems, large applicant pools, and time-consuming review cycles. When promising candidates wait too long for outreach or feedback, they may accept another offer.

Agentic recruiting capabilities can help streamline and elevate recruiter workflows. They can rediscover relevant talent from past applicants, CRM leads, and internal talent pools; assess candidate fit against job requirements; prioritize recruiter tasks; and guide hiring managers through review activities in the flow of work.

For technology and media organizations, the opportunity isn't simply to process more applicants. It's to help recruiting teams focus on the candidates most likely to fill business-critical roles.

Potential impact • 17% decrease in time to fill

• 54% increase in recruiter capacity

• Candidate screening effort reduced by an average of 57%

• Hiring manager review time reduced by an average of 35%

Technology: A software company can surface candidates with AI, cloud, security, data, or product expertise from large talent pools, helping recruiters compete for top talent for high-priority roles tied to the product roadmap.

Media: A media company can help recruiters prioritize candidates for hard-to-fill production, digital, advertising, and content-technology roles while engaging hiring managers earlier in the process.

Hire scarce AI, engineering, and creative talent faster

Industry lens

Begin with high-demand roles where candidate availability is limited and delayed decisions create material business risk. Measure time to fill, hiring-manager responsiveness, conversion, quality of hire, and recruiter capacity.

Where to start

3 10 Agentic Capabilities for Technology & Media

The quality of candidates coming through has improved noticeably, which means less time spent on screening and better matches overall.” “

Vice President, Global HR Operations Global AI Technology Company

HR

In Technology and Media, business priorities can change quickly. Product strategies shift, content slates evolve, new capabilities emerge, and organizations need talent in different places. Yet employees may not see relevant internal roles, gigs, or development opportunities—and leaders may turn to external hiring before identifying existing talent.

Agentic talent mobility capabilities can use skills, experience, preferences, and organizational mobility rules to recommend relevant internal jobs, gigs, and learning opportunities. They can also surface curated internal talent for recruiters and give managers greater visibility into career opportunities for their teams.

This can create a more skills-based approach to workforce agility: helping employees find their next opportunity while helping the business retain and redeploy critical capability.

Potential impact • 30% increase in internal applications

• 2.3x more internal moves

Technology: When a company shifts investment toward AI-enabled products, agentic capabilities can help surface employees with adjacent engineering, data, product, or customer-facing skills for priority roles and development paths.

Media: As content, advertising, or distribution priorities change, leaders can identify employees whose experience may translate across brands, platforms, production operations, and digital roles.

Redeploy talent at the speed of product, platform, and content change

Industry lens

Focus on a small number of strategic job families or emerging skill areas. Track internal applications, internal fills, time to redeploy talent, retention of critical populations, and progress in closing priority skill gaps.

Where to start

4 10 Agents for Technology & Media

2. Faster Internal Talent Redeployment

HR

3. Contextual Employee and Manager Self-Service

Employees and managers often lose valuable time navigating fragmented HR, payroll, policy, and workforce-management systems. In technology and media organizations, the problem can be amplified by hybrid work, distributed teams, evolving AI and workplace policies, and the need to support employees in the tools they already use.

Agentic self-service capabilities can provide contextual, conversational guidance based on a worker’s role, location, permissions, and internal data. It can retrieve and summarize policy information, guide people through processes, and complete eligible transactions in the flow of work.

For employees, that could mean quickly understanding a policy, requesting time off, checking schedule information, or accessing pay-related guidance. For managers, it can mean easier access to team insights and support for routine talent activities.

Potential impact • 25% decrease in HR case volume

• 20% increase in employee and manager productivity

Technology: Hybrid employees can receive fast, source-backed guidance on time off, pay, learning, workplace policies, and routine people processes without searching across intranets and portals.

Media: Production, field, and frontline employees can access schedules, time information, policies, and workforce guidance through a conversational experience.

Give employees and managers time back for higher-value work

Industry lens

Target the highest-volume employee and manager questions first. Measure case deflection, completion rates, time saved, answer quality, escalation rates, and employee satisfaction.

Where to start

5 10 Agents for Technology & Media

HR

4. Proactive Payroll Risk Resolution

Technology and media compensation is often more complex than a standard payroll process. Organizations may manage base pay, bonuses, commissions, equity-related processes, residuals, shift premiums, one-off payments, and employees across many jurisdictions. When teams rely on manual reports, email, and tickets to investigate payroll questions or regulatory changes, the risk of delay and error often increases.

Agentic payroll capabilities can help payroll teams identify potential data and configuration issues, understand the impact of wage-rule changes, answer complex payroll questions conversationally, and guide teams toward resolution with appropriate human oversight.

The result is a shift from reactive issue management to proactive payroll risk management.

Potential impact • Answers to complex payroll questions in under one minute

• 75% faster analysis of minimum wage changes

Technology: Payroll teams can investigate one-time bonuses, incentive compensation, multi-jurisdiction pay questions, and fast-moving regulatory changes without relying on manual report analysis.

Media: Organizations can help manage complex pay scenarios involving production schedules, residuals, crew premiums, union considerations, location-based wage rules, and payment corrections.

Find and resolve pay risks before they affect employees

Industry lens Prioritize recurring exception types, such as missing payment elections, wage-rule changes, urgent one-time payments, or high-volume payroll inquiries. Maintain clear review and approval requirements for every recommended action.

Where to start

6 10 Agents for Technology & Media

HR

5. Earlier Margin and Performance Insights

Technology and media finance teams often spend significant time explaining what happened after the fact. Variances may be spread across products, titles, regions, channels, workforce costs, cloud spend, and commercial commitments. Traditional reporting can reveal that a number changed without clearly identifying the drivers or the best next action.

Agentic planning capabilities can help teams connect data sources, identify material variances, analyze root causes, forecast outcomes, and model scenarios. It helps move the planning conversation from retrospective reporting toward timely intervention.

For leaders, the value is not just faster analysis. It is better-informed decisions about investment, headcount, cost, monetization, and portfolio performance.

Potential impact • 20% reduction in time spent on administrative planning tasks

• 30% less time spent on monthly data exploration

Understand what is driving margin and performance before it's too late

Technology: Finance leaders can investigate margin variance by product, customer segment, cloud spend, usage trends, or workforce cost to then model investment and capacity scenarios.

Media: Teams can analyze performance by title, format, region, channel, production cost, audience outcome, or advertising and subscription revenue.

Industry lens

Choose a high-value planning question that your leaders already need to answer, such as which products or titles are driving margin variance? Where is cloud or production cost rising faster than plan? Which talent scenarios best support the next planning cycle?

Where to start

7 10 Agents for Technology & Media

The Planning Agent redefines our FP&A function. Now our leaders get instant, self-serve data access in plain English— for faster strategic decisions.” “

Group Head of Planning Cloud ERP TX Group

FINANCE

6. More Connected Contract-to-Cash Execution

Complex revenue models can create friction between deal execution and financial operations. Subscription, usage-based, advertising, licensing, distribution, and content-revenue agreements often include variable pricing, renewal triggers, remittances, performance obligations, amendments, and nonstandard terms. When the details are handled manually, revenue can be delayed, misapplied, or misreported.

Agentic revenue contract capabilities can help bridge commercial terms and financial execution. It can ingest contracts and remittances, extract key financial information, interpret complex language, and support billing plans, revenue schedules, payment application, and contract-related financial updates.

This helps create a more connected contract-to-cash process.

Potential impact • $150,000 reduction in grants management costs

• 35% faster time to billing readiness

• 60% reduction in contract-creation errors

Technology: Leaders can use these capabilities to translate SaaS, usage-based, and AI pricing agreements into aligned billing schedules, revenue-recognition events, and performance obligations.

Media: Companies can interpret licensing, distribution, advertising, and content agreements to capture payment terms, revenue triggers, rights-related obligations, remittances, and amendments.

Connect commercial terms to financial execution

Industry lens

Identify the greatest source of contract-to-cash friction: contract intake, billing-plan creation, revenue scheduling, cash application, renewal management, or post-M&A contract integration. Establish controls for extracted data and accounting treatment.

Where to start

8 10 Agents for Technology & Media

FINANCE

7. Contract Risk, Spend, and Rights Intelligence

Contracts are foundational to technology and media operations. SaaS agreements, vendor contracts, customer MSAs, order forms, licensing arrangements, distribution rights, and production agreements may contain renewal dates, pricing escalators, usage limits, rebates, rights windows, and obligations that are difficult to monitor consistently.

Agentic contract intelligence capabilities can help teams ingest, review, and query draft and signed agreements. They can extract key data, identify nonstandard terms, surface upcoming risks and opportunities, and help legal, finance, procurement, and commercial teams work from a more complete view of contract obligations.

Potential impact • 35x return on investment in reduced costs alone

Technology: Procurement and finance teams can identify auto-renewals, pricing escalators, and underused vendor commitments while commercial teams monitor customer-specific discount, usage, and renewal provisions.

Media: Legal and finance teams can analyze licensing, distribution, and rights agreements for missing or nonstandard clauses, windows, territory restrictions, and revenue implications.

Protect spend, subscription revenue, and content rights

Industry lens

Begin with contracts carrying the greatest financial exposure: high-spend SaaS, strategic vendors, customer agreements, or rights and licensing deals. Define the terms that matter most before expanding the scope.

Where to start

9 10 Agents for Technology & Media

NetApp leveraged Workday’s cutting edge contract AI and automated workflow technology to save thousands of hours and millions of dollars across multiple critical corporate initiatives."

Legal Operations Manager NetApp

“

FINANCE

8. Faster Audit Evidence Collection

High spend, complex revenue models, rapid growth, and M&A activity can create substantial audit demands for technology and media organizations. Finance and audit teams often spend significant time locating invoices, contracts, approvals, reconciliations, and other supporting documentation— frequently under tight deadlines.

Agentic financial audit capabilities can help automate the collection, organization, and review of audit evidence across finance processes. They can interpret audit requests in natural language, identify the relevant financial objects and date ranges, retrieve supporting documentation, and centralize evidence for review and package creation.

The objective is to reduce the manual evidence hunt while improving audit readiness, control visibility, and confidence in the underlying financial record.

Stay audit-ready without the fire drill

10 10 Agents for Technology & Media

Potential impact • 80% time saved on every audit request

• 20 minutes saved on large sample requests

• Up to 900 annual hours saved via reporting automation

Technology: Finance teams can run targeted sampling on high-risk cloud-infrastructure and strategic-vendor spend, helping identify missing documentation before an audit request becomes a fire drill.

Media: Finance teams can accelerate evidence collection across rights payments, production spend, advertising-revenue processes, and acquired entities—supporting audit readiness during high-volume business change.

Industry lens

Begin with a high-volume audit process, such as procure-to-pay invoice sampling or a recurring internal control request. Measure evidence-collection time, completeness of audit packages, reviewer effort, and the number of follow-up requests from auditors.

Where to start

We used the Financial Audit Agent. This has had some great success. It allows our team to pull invoices by themselves, making the audit much faster. This gets us one step closer to a 'no touch' audit where we aren't spending enormous amounts of time pulling information for auditors.”

“ Chief Accounting Officer Genesys

FINANCE

9. Accelerated Deployment and Change

Technology and media organizations need to support evolving workforce, finance, subscription, usage, content, and operating models. Yet administrators and implementers often spend substantial time searching across documentation, troubleshooting configuration issues, and translating technical requirements into action.

Agentic deployment capabilities can help teams move faster by providing conversational, documentation-backed guidance for Workday configuration, troubleshooting, and learning. These capabilities can surface likely root causes, identify dependencies, provide step-by-step guidance, and help users better understand their own tenant configuration.

The outcome is not simply faster answers. It is greater capacity to deploy new models, support change, and reduce dependency on scarce technical specialists.

Potential impact • 120,000 questions answered in a single month

• 49% month-over-month growth in requests

Launch and adapt with confidence, while reducing reliance on scarce experts

Technology: A tech company can use these capabilities to support configuration decisions and troubleshoot issues as it launches new subscription, usage, workforce, or financial operating models.

Media: A media company can help administrators navigate configuration and integration changes affecting production workforces, payroll, reporting, finance, and operations.

Industry lens

Choose a high-friction implementation or support scenario that routinely requires specialist help. Track time to resolution, escalation volume, user confidence, and the time required to complete changes.

Where to start

11 10 Agents for Technology & Media

Workday Deployment Agent was very thorough in guiding me through step-by-step all the details that I would have normally had to spend about 30 minutes figuring out on my own.” “

People & Finance Head of Business Systems Nextdoor

IT

10. Business Process Optimization

Slow or inefficient approvals can quietly delay recruiting, purchasing, content production, rights management, workforce changes, and financial processes. Organizations may know that a process is slow without knowing why—or what configuration change would make the greatest difference.

Agentic business process optimization can analyze runtime and configuration data to identify bottlenecks and inefficient pathways. It can recommend targeted configuration changes, support human review, and measure the impact of approved optimizations over time.

For technology and media organizations, the opportunity is to remove friction from the workflows that directly shape speed to hire, speed to launch, speed to produce, and speed to revenue.

Potential impact • 800+ business-process types supported across Workday

• 3,500 hours saved per quarter in modeled use cases

Technology: A company can identify stalled recruiting approvals, missing delegates, or redundant workflow steps that extend time to offer for scarce technical talent.

Media: A company can analyze crew, spend, rights, and exception-approval workflows to keep content moving against tight production and release timelines.

Remove workflow bottlenecks that slow growth

Industry lens

Choose one process with measurable cycle-time pain and a clear owner. Review bottlenecks, implement approved improvements, and track cycle time, reassignments, manual corrections, and stakeholder satisfaction.

Where to start

12 10 Agents for Technology & Media

IT

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Building an agentic strategy for your organization The strongest agentic strategy starts with business outcomes, not technology categories. An organization might begin by improving recruiting velocity for scarce AI talent, accelerating contract-to-cash execution, reducing production or cloud-spend variance, or simplifying employee self-service. Over time, the opportunity is to connect talent, product and content operations, finance, and technology into a more responsive operating model.

• Measure outcomes, then scale. Track adoption alongside business results. The goal is not the number of AI interactions—it is faster innovation, stronger talent outcomes, more resilient operations, better financial visibility, and more time for high-value work.

• Design for human oversight. Agentic capabilities can identify, recommend, guide, and automate, but people remain accountable for important decisions. Establish approval paths, exception rules, governance, and auditability from the beginning.

• Start where value is visible. Select a workflow with measurable friction, clear ownership, and a material outcome—such as time to fill, internal mobility,

contract cycle time, audit effort, cash application, margin variance, or administrative burden.

Three principles can help guide the journey:

Technology and media organizations win when they can connect the processes that shape talent availability, operating speed, financial control, and growth. The 10 agentic capabilities in this eBook offer a practical starting point. From recruiting and mobility to contract intelligence, revenue execution, audit readiness, planning, deployment, and process optimization, each can address a different source of friction across the talent-to-growth journey.

The path forward

The question is not whether every process should be automated. It is where agentic capabilities can help people make better decisions, protect value, and move the business forward with greater speed and confidence.