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PLEASANTON, Calif. — Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ: WDAY), the AI platform for managing people, money, and agents, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Paradox, a candidate experience agent that uses conversational AI to simplify every step of the job application journey – particularly for high-volume frontline industries, which employ nearly 3 billion workers globally. The addition of Paradox will give Workday an AI-powered talent acquisition suite to help customers more efficiently find, hire, and onboard every type of worker – from the frontline to the back office – for every type of work, from full-time, to contingent.
“Hiring is one of the most critical moments in the employee experience, yet too often it’s slowed down by outdated processes and disconnected tools,” said Gerrit Kazmaier, president, Product & Technology, Workday. “By bringing Paradox’s candidate experience AI agent into Workday, we’re giving organizations a smarter, faster, and more engaging way to connect with candidates. Together, we’ll help our customers move from transactional recruiting to transformative hiring that helps deliver talent, in less time, and with a better experience for everyone.”
“From day one, our mission has been to help our customers’ recruiting and hiring teams spend more time with people and less time with software,” said Adam Godson, CEO, Paradox. “Workday’s global reach and comprehensive platform provide the perfect runway for us to accelerate our mission, bringing our proven conversational AI to a much bigger audience and helping more companies around the world transform their hiring processes.”
Redefining The Candidate Experience with AI
Paradox delivers exceptional candidate experiences at scale, giving every applicant a personalized, high-touch interaction powered by AI. Paradox’s candidate experience agent gives candidates instant responses, self-scheduling capabilities, and 24/7 support in a natural conversational experience. Additionally, by turning slow, burdensome recruiting processes into quick, seamless conversations, Paradox helps companies fill high-volume roles with candidates faster, to drive measurable business results.
Paradox has powered more than 189 million AI-assisted candidate conversations. Their unique expertise in candidate experience and hiring processes has improved candidate response times resulting in employee conversion rates over 70%, helping organizations fill roles faster and reducing time-to-hire to as low as three and a half days.
Workday: A Talent Acquisition Suite for Every Type of Worker
The addition of Paradox will give Workday an AI-powered talent acquisition suite to help customers more efficiently find, hire, and onboard every type of worker – from the frontline to the back office – across full-time and contingent roles. From AI-driven talent discovery and matching with HiredScore, to AI-powered candidate conversations with Paradox, to streamlined hiring and onboarding in Workday Recruiting, Workday is uniquely positioned to help organizations attract, engage, and retain top talent in one unified, intelligent platform. By unifying all of these capabilities with Workday Recruiting, companies can reduce time-to-hire, improve conversion rates, and deliver an end-to-end talent journey that sets them apart in a competitive market.
“Workday’s acquisition of Paradox is a highly strategic move,” said Josh Bersin, global industry analyst and CEO, The Josh Bersin Company. “This establishes Workday as a leader in high-volume, front-line hiring, which covers 70% of the jobs in the world, and also brings a pioneering AI product team into the company. Workday customers should be excited about the potential.”
“Our partnership with Paradox has already delivered significant improvements, reducing our time-to-hire by 75%, from 12 days to 4, and doubling applicant flow,” said Ilene Eskenazi, chief human resources officer, Chipotle. “We look forward to Paradox becoming a part of Workday and anticipate even greater support and resources as we continue to enhance the employee experience for our restaurant managers and free up their time to focus on delivering delicious culinary and exceptional hospitality to our guests.”
Details Regarding Proposed Acquisition of Paradox
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of Workday’s fiscal year 2026, ending October 31, 2025, subject to the satisfaction of closing conditions, including required regulatory approvals. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC is serving as financial advisor to Workday and Orrick is serving as its legal advisor. Qatalyst Partners is serving as financial advisor to Paradox and DLA Piper is serving as its legal advisor.
