Workday Beats Q2 FY27 Estimates as AI Drives Over 25% of New ACV; Wires Split on the Guidance

WDAY posted a second-quarter fiscal 2027 beat, delivering $2.65 billion of revenue against a $2.64 billion consensus and adjusted earnings of $2.75 per share versus the FactSet estimate of $2.61. Revenue grew 12.8% year over year, adjusted operating income of $824 million beat the $792.8 million estimate, and operating margin improved to 11.8% from 10.6% a year earlier. Billings finished the quarter at $2.71 billion, up 13.6%.

Management put AI at the center of the story. Co-founder and CEO Aneel Bhusri said AI drove more than 25% of new annual contract value and that more than 5,500 customers now use at least one of Workday's organic agents, adding that the company's "deterministic rails" are what let customers trust agents with production work. Workday also committed $2.9 billion to share repurchases and outlined an additional $4 billion program.

The outlook is where the reporting splits, and the split is worth flagging rather than resolving. One aggregator headlined the full-year figure of $9.94 billion to $9.95 billion as a cut against a $10.669 billion estimate, while a separate wire reported that the outlook met estimates and that shares slipped anyway. Workday's total revenue in fiscal 2026 was about $9.55 billion, so a $9.94 billion to $9.95 billion range would imply only mid-single-digit total growth, which sits oddly against the 12.8% growth just reported. The $10.669 billion comparison figure appears in a single low-reliability source and should be treated as unverified.

What to watch: whether agent adoption converts into measurable ACV expansion at renewal, how quickly the enlarged buyback is executed, and a clean restatement of the full-year guidance basis, since the disagreement across the wires is about which revenue line is being guided. This is market analysis, not investment advice.

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