Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Wednesday that the rise of artificial intelligence is positive for his company, pushing back against what he called a “narrative out there that AI is eating the software world.”
“For some people, AI may be a headwind. For Workday, it’s a tailwind,” Eschenbach said. “We have 75 million users on our platform. We have one of the most highly-curated sets of data in the industry that we get to train off of.”
Workday is an enterprise software outfit that offers a number of services, including helping companies manage finances, payroll and human resources.
Eschenbach said Workday has a customer gross retention rate of over 97% and a “sticky platform with all the data.” He also said the company can “train our data and drive real business outcome through our AI solutions,” adding that he believes Workday is “underappreciated” and “undervalued.”
The stock has seen losses over the past several months, currently down 8.97% year-to-date. But Workday saw a boost after activist investor Elliott disclosed it has a more than $2 billion stake in the company. The stock popped at the news and was up 7% by Wednesday’s close. Elliott expressed support for the company’s management and business plans laid out at its investor day earlier this week.
“We believe CEO Carl Eschenbach, CFO Zane Rowe and the entire Workday team have made substantial progress in recent years, positioning Workday as a unique software franchise with industry-leading growth potential, best-in-class customer retention and a proven management team,” Elliott said in a press release on Tuesday.
Eschenbach told Cramer that Workday is leaning into its relationship with Elliott, treating it as a “true partnership.”
“I think they agree with our narrative, our financial framework for the next few years,” Eschenbach said of Elliott. “And we continue to look forward to partnering with them and all of our investors as we go forward.”