Workday goes deeper into AI and recruiting with acquisition of Paradox

August 2025 has been full of deals.

SAP bought SmartRecruiters, Thrive acquired Huler, Dayforce has gone private in a $12.3 billion deal with Thoma Bravo, and now Workday has announced its intent to acquire conversational AI recruiting platform Paradox.

This acquisition builds on Workday’s purchases in the HR AI space, including HiredScore, FlowiseAI and Evisort.

Writing on LinkedIn, Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach shared:

Industry analyst Josh Bersin is clear that this a significant deal.

He shared: “This deal could be far more than an addition to Workday’s recruitment offering”.

“It could significantly expand Workday into the frontline worker market, broaden the product portfolio, and deepen Workday’s AI expertise.”

Jess Von Bank, Global Leader, HR Transformation & Technology Advisory at Mercer, agreed.

Writing on LinkedIn, Von Bank stated: "Workday isn't just acquiring Paradox, they're buying a frontline AI interface, a scheduling engine, and a candidate experience machine.

"This is a declaration of war for the AI-powered, end-to-end workforce tech stack."

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of Workday’s 2026 fiscal year, which ends in October 2025.

Workday, Paradox and the AI future of recruitment

Paradox was founded in 2016, and was among the first conversational AI recruiting platforms.

It’s AI assistant Olivia aims to speed up the hiring process – Paradox claims to have facilitated 189 million AI-assisted candidate conversations, and have a 70% conversion rate.

Paradox has multiple enterprise customers, including 7-Eleven, Nestle, Marriott International, Medtronic, Chipotle, Checker Rally’s, Dell, Wendy’s and IHG.

Paradox brings Workday a complete solution for the thousands of companies like McDonald’s, FedEx, 7-11, and many more who need to hire quickly, frequently, and with precision,” noted Bersin.Paradox brings Workday a complete solution for the thousands of companies like McDonald’s, FedEx, 7-11, and many more who need to hire quickly, frequently, and with precision,” noted Bersin.

Paradox’s CEO Adam Godson, who took the helm of the company in March 2024, stated: "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.

"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."

Workday President of Product & Technology Gerrit Kazmaier added: "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.