Workday AI Research PhD Fellowship
Program overview.
The Workday AI Research PhD Fellowship supports exceptional doctoral students working at the intersection of AI and enterprise software.
Fellows receive funding, direct research collaboration with Workday AI researchers, and a clear pathway into full-time roles at Workday.
This fellowship is designed for PhD students who want their work to matter at scale—in systems used by tens of thousands of organizations and hundreds of millions of workers worldwide.
Explore the program’s benefits, research focus areas, and eligibility criteria.
$50,000 unrestricted fellowship per year for up to two years (total $100,000), provided as a gift to the student’s faculty advisor to support the student; renewal for the second year is at Workday’s discretion.
Optional 12‑week, paid summer internship at Workday between the first and second fellowship years, subject to mutual interest and hiring needs; internship compensation is separate from the fellowship, and participation in the internship is not required for fellowship renewal.
Dedicated Workday AI Research mentor for the duration of the fellowship
Early-access pipeline to various full-time roles at Workday (e.g., AI engineers, AI scientist, and software engineers)
We welcome submissions in all areas related to Workday AI. Examples include:
Ethical and Responsible AI — Fairness, governance, auditability, and explainability in AI systems operating in compliance-heavy environments (HR, Finance, legal)
Human-Agentic Workforce Co-optimization — How enterprises staff, manage, and evolve alongside AI agents; modeling mixed human-agent teams
Data Integration and Semantic Data Modeling — Making heterogeneous enterprise data AI-ready; semantic representations for structured, policy-governed domains
Business and Agentic Process Automation — Goal-driven agents that reason and execute across enterprise systems; governance frameworks for auditable, enterprise-grade agent execution
Enterprise AI Evaluation and Benchmarking — Task accuracy, regulatory compliance, and fairness benchmarks for AI systems in HCM and Finance domains
PhD students in their 3rd year or later at an accredited university at the time of grant.
Advised by a faculty member willing to co-engage with a Workday AI Researcher on a shared research problem
Proposals must describe a research problem of mutual interest — we are looking for true collaboration, not consulting engagements
We will distribute this call for submission to invited faculty and universities.
Applications are evaluated on technical merit and novelty, alignment with Workday's research themes, feasibility of collaboration with the Workday AI Research team, and potential for publication at a top venue.
How to apply and timeline.
Submission Deadline: Email the following materials to workday-ai-research@workday.com by Aug 1, 2026.
The submission should be done by the student’s PhD advisor, and each submission is tied to a pair. Therefore, it is possible for an advisor to make multiple submissions for different students.
1. 2-page max research proposal covering problem statement, methodology, expected contributions, and why a Workday collaboration is the right fit
2. Student CV
3. Faculty advisor endorsement letter for the student
Decision Date: Workday AI Research will make funding decisions by Aug 15, 2026.
Fellowship Start Date: The program is expected to start Sep 1, 2026