What Happened?

Shares of enterprise software company Workday (NASDAQ: WDAY) fell 6.5% in the afternoon session after Anthropic launched Managed Agents, autonomous AI systems that execute complex tasks. 

Traders were worried these would disrupt the traditional SaaS (Software as a Service) model, software delivered via subscription, by replacing human-operated tools with more efficient AI workers. 

The sell-off intensified after short seller Michael Burry (in a deleted social media post) claimed Anthropic was "eating Palantir's lunch." Burry's comments highlighted the vulnerability of legacy platforms to Anthropic's cheaper AI solutions.

The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks. Is now the time to buy Workday? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.

What Is The Market Telling Us

Workday’s shares are somewhat volatile and have had 14 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.

The previous big move we wrote about was about 24 hours ago when the stock dropped 5.1% on the news that Anthropic announced Managed Agents, a hosted service for long-running AI tasks. 

Investors reacted to the potential disruption of existing SaaS business models, as these agents continued to pose a threat to expensive, seat-based enterprise software with more efficient, autonomous AI infrastructure. 

Managed agents are specialized AI systems that can independently execute multi-step, long-duration tasks. Unlike standard AI chatbots or basic APIs that require constant human prompting, managed agents feature durable states and resumable workflows, allowing them to pause and restart without losing progress. While traditional software products require manual input for every action, these agents use "policy-guarded tools" to interact with digital environments, making them autonomous workers rather than just passive tools.

Workday is down 45.7% since the beginning of the year, and at $111.78 per share, it is trading 59.3% below its 52-week high of $274.71 from May 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Workday’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at only $433.91.

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