Workday jumps on positive Q1 earnings under returning CEO
Workday spiked as much as 10% after-hours on Thursday as the B2B SaaS company announced first quarter results.
Here are the numbers:
Q1 revenue of $2.54 billion (compared to analyst estimates of $2.51 billion).
Q1 adjusted earnings per share of $2.66 (estimate: $2.51).
Q1 subscription revenue of $2.35 billion (estimate: $2.33 billion).
This was Workdays's first quarter with its returning CEO, co-founder Aneel Bhusri who re-took the reigns in February of this year. It was also to a test to see how the company's ongoing AI pivot has been going, as AI investment often comes with steep costs that may not initially be fully counter-balanced by savings through efficiency.
Workday has been trading down 40% since the beginning of 2026.
In February, the company also cut about 2% of its global workforce (about 400 positions) — that's following larger-scale layoffs last year as the company leaned into AI.
The software company is also still litigating a nationwide class-action lawsuit that alleges it uses said AI to algorithmically discriminate against certain job-seekers based on age, race, and disability (which the company disputes).
Looking ahead, the company said they project 2027 subscription revenue outlook of $9.925 billion to $9.950 billion, on-par with analyst estimates.
"Our focus remains on executing on our agentic AI roadmap while driving operational efficiencies as we scale," said Zane Rowe, CFO, Workday. The company said in a Q4 earnings call that AI was involved in roughly customer-base transactions.