Workday is the AI platform for managing people, money, and agents. The Workday platform is built with AI at its core to help customers elevate people, enhance work, and move their business continually forwards. It’s used by more than 11,000 organisations around the world and across industries, from medium-sized businesses to more than 60% of the Fortune 500.
As a global leader, Workday produces a vast and growing library of multimedia content, much of which must be localised for diverse international audiences. With more than 50 languages supported and stakeholder requests commonly spanning 10 to 15 languages per project, the scale and complexity of localisation presented mounting challenges.
'We were producing so much content—marketing videos, internal communications, long-form webinars—and we needed to get it into all these different languages,' said Justin Meisinger, Programme Manager on the Globalisation Production Team at Workday. 'But the old way of doing it just did not scale.'
The challenge wasn’t just scale. 'When you're working with dozens of languages, keeping everything aligned with your brand voice is quite difficult. It’s not just about translating words, it’s about preserving tone, intent, and clarity.' The introduction of HeyGen transformed Workday’s approach to video.
Rethinking the localisation workflow
Before HeyGen, Workday relied exclusively on manual processes, which slowed down production and restricted the projects the team could support. 'It wasn’t just expensive, it was limiting our ability to say yes to the business,' Meisinger said. 'We were constantly balancing capacity against demand.'
The traditional localisation workflow was built around human translators, voice actors, and post-production specialists, and took weeks or even months. The process included translators working on scripts, reviewers checking for accuracy, voice talent recording in sound studios, and an entire team stitching it all together.
‘We have got a huge portfolio of content, and when something changes, it is usually a small window that we have got to change a handful of videos and get them out in a timely manner,’ said Johanna Stussy, Product Strategist at Workday.
This resource-intensive model also came with a hefty price tag. 'We were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on localisation,' Meisinger said. 'And sometimes we had to turn projects down, especially long-form videos like webinars, because it just wasn’t feasible with the resources we had.'
Creating that special moment with AI video
The introduction of HeyGen offered a breakthrough. Workday first explored HeyGen as a way to accelerate the initial translation step, but quickly discovered it could do much more. 'HeyGen has been magical for us,' Meisinger shared. 'It can translate a video in minutes, and we can bring our linguists directly into HeyGen to proofread and make small tweaks to maintain our brand voice.'
‘The key moment was definitely the bespoke avatars and the ability to change the content within minutes,’ Johanna said. ‘I can have a video, they can send me a video, and I could render it in three languages for them to review the same day.’
A key reason for choosing HeyGen was its term-based functionality, which integrates with Workday’s predefined set of approved translations for key terms. 'This lets us upload our term base, so when the AI translates content, it’s already using the right language,' he said. 'That’s something we haven’t seen anywhere else.'
Another major draw was HeyGen’s advanced audio capabilities. Even when original audio stems weren’t available, HeyGen could isolate a speaker’s voice from background music and re-synthesise it in another language, which would otherwise require an entire production team.
'The magic moment for me was when I uploaded a video of myself, and a few minutes later, HeyGen produced a video of me speaking German. I took that video and showed it to my German colleagues, and they asked me, "Do you speak German?" So, I think that made it seem genuinely magical,' Meisinger said.
Ultimately, HeyGen stood out as a partner that shared Workday’s values around innovation and integrity. 'We’re an AI company too, so we care deeply about ethical AI use,' Meisinger emphasised. 'HeyGen gave us the control and flexibility we needed, without compromising our principles.'
Enabling the Workday team to say ‘I made this’
HeyGen have completely reshaped how Workday handle localisation. 'What I love about HeyGen is that I no longer have to say no to projects,' said Meisinger. 'It’s like we’ve augmented our team. We can do far more with the resources we have.'
‘To translate a course, it would take 4 to 6 weeks on average,’ Johanna said. ‘Today I can translate the media for one of our courses in weeks, and sometimes even days depending on the project. That just was unheard of.’
By integrating HeyGen into its localisation pipeline, Workday have redefined their global video strategy, making it faster, smarter, and more ethical. The result is a scalable, high-quality process that is ready to meet the demands of a growing international audience.
- Speed and scale: Localisation turnaround reduced from weeks to minutes, with 10–15 languages per video, including two-hour webinars.
- Cost efficiency: Significant savings via flat-rate pricing; 100% increase in capacity without adding headcount.
- Brand integrity and ethics: Fully aligned with Workday’s terminology standards and ethical AI use, avoiding deceptive practices such as lip-syncing.
Reflecting on the experience, Meisinger emphasised the professional pride that comes with delivering high-quality, efficient work. "It's important to me from a professional standpoint to be able to do this. Not just because it makes me look good, but because I can go home at the end of the day and feel like I delivered a quality product and made myself more efficient," he shared.
For other teams considering AI for localisation, Workday have a simple message: "Just try it. It’s free to test. You might be surprised by how much it improves your workflow."
‘Embrace it, test it, and stay curious. I definitely found some unexpected little gems that saved time and added value to our workflow,’ said Johanna.
