What is UKG?
UKG has evolved into one of the most expansive workforce platforms in the market, covering HCM, payroll, workforce management, timekeeping, scheduling, and employee experience. UKG brings a successful track record in workforce management and HCM, and now it’s reshaping its future growth around AI, data, and frontline support.
More than 80,000 organizations across key frontline-heavy industries like healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and public sector use UKG’s software today. That context matters: the pressure on those sectors - staffing shortages, compliance complexity, and cost constraints - is driving UKG’s next phase of platform evolution.
How They Work
UKG’s stated product vision is “To help every organization become a Great Place To Work by building people-centric technology that meets each team member where they are on their journey.”
What that actually means is layered.
- Let’s start at the foundation. UKG has enhanced the foundation of its platform to be more flexible, connected, and intelligent. Their “People Fabric” acts as a unified data layer - meaning information from across HR, payroll, scheduling, and talent is shared in real time. This isn’t just AI layered on top. Bryte AI is a personalized technology designed to adjust based on who's using it and what they need, whether that’s automating payroll steps, supporting a scheduling decision, or guiding a manager through a promotion.
- In the product layer, UKG is building AI agents into the everyday workflows HR teams already use: workforce planning, employee engagement, scheduling, and payroll. These agents don’t just automate tasks; they understand the situation, work across different parts of the system, and can even make recommendations or take action on their own (with appropriate guardrails). The goal is to reduce administrative work, surface the right information at the right time, and help HR and managers focus on decisions instead of clicking through systems.
- Finally, UKG is shifting how it brings products to market - moving away from one-size-fits-all solutions and instead focusing on the specific needs of different people in the organization. That means designing tools and experiences that directly address what matters to CHROs, frontline managers, payroll leaders, and employees—whether it's workforce planning at the executive level or making it easier for employees to check their schedules or pay.
CEO, Jennifer Morgan, shared that UKG has shifted the approach to “put the customer at the center of everything,” and that should impact everything. This means UKG isn’t just focused on selling software, but they’re aiming to be a true partner in how work actually gets done. For today’s HR and operations teams,that shift matters. It’s about having a system that helps you execute, not just track, whether you’re managing complex schedules, ensuring compliance, or supporting employee development.
What They’re Focused On
Across sessions and demos, three strategic priorities were clear:
1. AI You Can Use (and Trust)
UKG is trying to answer the very real question HR and ops leaders have: How does AI make our work better? Not just theoretically, but practically, inside existing systems.
Their Bryte AI layer includes:
- Confidence scores to promote transparency
- AI agents for self-service, payroll processing, scheduling, and performance
- Contextual search (“Search and Act”) that moves beyond task lists to dynamic, outcome-focused interaction
Unlike other vendors racing to announce “AI-first” without depth, UKG’s advantage is grounded in the maturity of their WFM data. They’re not starting from scratch and they didn’t just start a couple of years ago; they’re applying AI to data and processes they already understand well and have for decades.
2. Frontline-Centric Innovation
UKG is unapologetically focused on the frontline worker. From shift optimization to pay transparency to self-service scheduling, the focus was clearly on making work more manageable and equitable for distributed and hourly teams.
This is more than just a mobile app (which some vendors still lack to our amazement and disappointment). UKG is building features like job-specific UI, shift bidding, and integrated time/pay automation. For buyers in retail, healthcare, and manufacturing, this is a differentiator for both business operations and employee experience.
3. Compliance as a Platform Capability
Rather than treating compliance as an add-on or report, UKG is building it into the flow of work proactively: from pay validation and tax rules to scheduling limitations and document readiness.
As legislation becomes more dynamic and decentralized (see: pay transparency, fair workweek, global payroll), platform-level compliance logic will be a competitive advantage and must-have (according to Tami). UKG has always made easing compliance complexity a priority and they continue to clearly invest here.
What’s Next
- No Homepage Experience: Guided flows that remove friction and adapt to the user's context. A major UI/UX overhaul is underway to support this.
- Expanded Agent Capabilities: From onboarding to benefits modeling to payroll anomalies, more workflows will be automated or AI-assisted.
- Deeper Verticalization: Retail and healthcare are early beneficiaries. Watch for expansion in manufacturing and public sector.
- Global Expansion and Localization: New payroll engines (e.g., Canada, UK) and deeper partnerships for international compliance.
The ambition is clear. The challenge will be balancing innovation speed with trust, transparency, and ease of use. AI can reduce friction, but only if it doesn’t create new confusion.
What Stood Out
Platform Purpose
The most meaningful shift isn’t any single feature; it’s that UKG is changing who the platform is designed for.
Historically, WFM and HCM platforms were built for administrators. Today, UKG is building for employees, managers, and leaders, with tools designed around their decisions, their goals, and their realities.
That includes:
- Frontline employees needing answers, not systems
- Managers juggling shift coverage, performance, and budgets
- Payroll and HR leaders needing confidence, not complexity
And critically: all of them using the same platform, powered by shared data and intelligent AI agents.
Clarity and Alignment
One of the most notable takeaways from this year’s Analyst Day wasn’t a product—it was the team behind the platform.
For those of us who’ve followed UKG closely for years, Analyst Day 2025 delivered exactly what we’ve come to expect from the event itself: well-organized, information-rich, and thoughtfully structured. In fact, it felt like a step up in terms of format and content. Many of the usual faces were gone, and there was a real sense of, “let’s see who they are now.” It wasn’t about doubt, but about curiosity. With so much leadership turnover in the last year, the big question was whether the vision, strategy, and execution were still aligned.
The answer was clearer than expected: this is a leadership team that appears to be in lockstep. Across sessions - from product to marketing to customer experience - the messages were consistent, and the priorities aligned. Topics like AI, compliance, frontline workforce support, and user experience were discussed with a shared framing and strategic clarity. That kind of internal coherence isn’t always present, especially during periods of executive transition.
For HR leaders, this matters because it signals continuity and long-term stability in a category where vendor turnover and vision shifts are common. For tech buyers, it suggests UKG’s roadmap is more likely to hold—because the people building it are clearly aligned around the same goals.
What This Means for HR
1. From Systems of Access to Systems of Action
Traditional HCM platforms have been built to track and store information, but users - whether administrators, managers, or employees - had to know what they needed, where to find, and what to do with it. What UKG is building aims to go further by not just giving access to information but to taking actions. Whether it’s a manager approving time off, a payroll leader troubleshooting an error, or an employee looking for a policy, the system is becoming more of a partner than a tool.
2. AI You Can Actually Use (and Explain)
AI isn’t just a buzzword in UKG’s approach - it’s task-specific, embedded, and designed to support real workflows while delivering users the data accuracately. This is one of the most concerning and challenging things with AI across the HR technolody industry. To our delight, UKG’s approach is one of the best we’ve seen. With features like Bryte’s confidence scoring and context-aware recommendations, HR leaders get transparency and control, not a black box. This is particularly important in sensitive areas like pay, performance, and compliance.
3. Elevated Expectations for Personalization
One of the more subtle but powerful shifts is how the platform adapts to different roles. Frontline employees get different experiences than HR admins or CFOs - and that’s by design. Who wants or has time to wade through insights for the whole company when I’m responsible for this particular piece?! For HR teams, this means fewer one-size-fits-all processes and more targeted support that fits how people actually work.
4. Built-In Compliance, Not Compliance Bolt-On
As regulatory complexity increases across pay transparency, scheduling, and labor standards, HR can no longer rely on audits or add-ons. UKG’s model of embedding compliance logic into scheduling, pay, and workforce planning makes the process both more scalable and less reactive.
UKG consistently delivers a strong analyst event, with generous executive access, early looks at product updates, and thoughtfully curated experiences in beautiful locations. This year’s event not only met that bar—it raised it.
Everything felt elevated: the setting, the hospitality, and the attention to detail. The swag wasn’t just high quality - it was meaningful. Each item came from a UKG customer, and all of it was genuinely useful. (For the record, the Key Lime Cookies were a hit with my entire family.)
Even the welcome amenities reflected care: after a day of travel, arriving to a fresh coconut filled with milk and a plate of snacks was a thoughtful touch, and exactly what I didn’t know I needed. It was a great reminder that experience isn’t just something UKG talks about. It’s something they deliver.
Special thanks to the UKG team: Jennifer Morgan, Suresh Vittal, Sarah Hodges, Rachel Barger, Bob DelPonte, Chris Kiklas, Jessica Griffin, Corey Spencer, Amy Brar, Richard Limpkin, Jennifer Brafman Staffen, and Bindu Mathew.
