WDAY F1Q27 Recap: A Different Animal

Research evidence excerpt

WDAY F1Q27 Recap: A Different Animal

SOFTWARE

WORKDAY, INC. May 22, 2026

estimates). By our estimates, F2Q Subscription revenue guidance implies around a 15% y/y

decline in New ARR, which implies continued acceleration in momentum as measured on a

2-year growth stack. For the FY, management reiterated its Subscription revenue guidance

of 12-13%, choosing to not flow through the F1Q subscription revenue outperformance.

The company raised its FY Operating margin guidance by 0.5% to 30.5% (and expects

GAAP Operating margin to be 18-19% lower), driven by AI efficiencies across the company

(and flat headcount expectations vs. growth 3 months ago). WDAY also maintained FY27

Operating Cash Flow guidance of $3.45B, and CapEx guidance of approx. $270M, resulting

in FY FCF guidance of $3.18B.

Thoughts on cRPO. We continue to view cRPO as a materially flawed metric when

trying to measure business momentum for a Software company, which is likely why only

a small portion of our coverage universe still points investors to the metric. See our

note "What RPO Tells You ... And What it Doesn't" dated November 14, 2022 for further

explanation. Nonetheless, some companies (and investors) still point to the metric, so we

will acknowledge its existence. For WDAY, F1Q27 cRPO of 15.4% was slightly ahead of

the midpoint of guidance. F2Q27 cRPO guidance of 13.5%-14.5% growth y/y was slightly

below consensus at the midpoint.

Sana AI Summit – A New Paradigm. We also attended the Sana AI Summit yesterday at

the New York Public Library where Workday announced the promotion of Sana CEO Joel

Hellermark to Chief AI Officer and discussed several topics relevant to the future of Workday

and frankly, Software. The inspiring presentation outlined a history of AI and change with