Workday announced on Tuesday that it’s acquiring Evisort, an AI-powered contract management platform, for an undisclosed amount.
In a statement, Terrance Wampler, group general manager at Workday, said that Evisort’s tech will enable Workday to add a range of AI-powered document processing tools to its existing finance and HR software.
“Evisort will help us deliver on our vision to help customers unlock the value of their most critical data,” Wampler said. “With AI-powered document intelligence, they’ll be able to surface and act on insights more quickly and efficiently.”
Evisort adds to Workday’s growing collection of AI-focused acquisitions, which started with HR analytics firm Identified in 2014. In 2018, the company bought SkipFlag, makers of an AI knowledge base that builds itself from an enterprise’s internal chats.
San Francisco-based Evisort was founded by a team of Harvard Law and MIT researchers — Amine Anoun, Jake Sussman, and Jerry Ting — in 2016.
Today, the startup offers AI-powered modules that let customers analyze documents like revenue contracts, asset agreements, and supplier invoices for things like omissions and errors, and get recommendations on document language.
Evisort also helps highlight key elements in documents such as unclaimed benefits in supplier agreements, evaluate document language against historical benchmarks, and automatically notify customers of important upcoming file-related dates (e.g. contract renewals).
Competition in the AI document tooling sector is fierce; Fortune Business Insights estimates that it’ll be worth $19.32 billion by 2032. But Evisort found success relatively early on despite a security setback, expanding its client base over the years to include brands like Microsoft, Motley Fool, NetApp, and Vonage.
Evisort raised $155.6 million in capital and debt from investors including General Atlantic, TCV, Vertex Ventures, and Microsoft’s M12 prior to its exit, according to Crunchbase.
Ting, Evisort’s CEO, said that Workday customers can expect Evisort’s features — including chatbots built to reference a company’s knowledge bases, like HR and finance policies — to make their way into Workday’s suite in the coming months.
“AI is a powerful force, transforming how organizations convert unstructured data in documents into strategic business decisions,” Ting said in a press release. “We’re excited to combine Evisort’s document intelligence technology with Workday’s unified finance and HR platform, which will empower customers to leverage critical business data more effectively, within a single system of truth.”
Workday expects the acquisition — its second this year after HR platform HiredScore — to close in Q3 of its fiscal year 2025, subject to customary closing conditions.
Broadly, Workday has increased its investments in AI over the past several years.
In 2023, the company announced it would expand its Workday Ventures VC fund by $250 million in part to support AI, machine learning, and workflow automation ventures. Workday has also built AI capabilities into its various HR products, including “agents” designed to automate repetitive back-office tasks.
On Tuesday at its Workday Rising conference, Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach called AI a “tectonic shift” with “immense potential” for the enterprise sector. He acknowledged, however, that many businesses were struggling to implement AI “in a way that drives meaningful results.”
