Monthly Industry Pulse

Workday Buys Sana for $1.1B, Wellhub Completes $600M Deal, Family First Launches New Solutions & More Industry News

The latest high-profile acquisitions and industry developments confirm that the market remains firmly centered on strategic, technology-driven HR, wellness, and benefits innovation.
In This Post:

The 2025 wave of M&A activity in HR tech shows no signs of slowing.

After last month’s news of Thoma Bravo buying Dayforce, Workday’s $1.1 billion purchase of AI-native learning platform Sana becomes the latest in a string of high-profile deals reshaping the industry.

At the same time, the broader HR ecosystem, from technology to wellness and benefits, is seeing its own surge of significant moves as industry leaders respond to regulatory pressures, evolving employee expectations, and the growing role of AI.

These past months of activity and innovation have confirmed that the market increasingly focuses on strategic, technology-driven workforce management. The following summary captures the key developments in late August and September that reflect this trend.

Workday Caps Series of Strategic Moves with $1.1B Sana Acquisition

Over the past few weeks, Workday dominated the headlines with several strategic moves and product launches, signaling a particularly active period for the company.

The leading news was its definitive agreement to acquire Sana, an AI company known for its knowledge tools and AI-native learning platform, in a deal valued at $1.1 billion.

The acquisition, announced at Workday Rising 2025, will integrate Sana’s AI-powered search, agents, and learning with Workday’s unique data and rich ecosystem of partners to create what the company calls “the new front door for work.”

Founded in 2016, Sana has served over one million users with products like Sana Learn and Sana Agents. As part of Workday, it will continue developing these tools while accelerating growth and innovation.

“Sana’s team, AI-native approach, and beautiful design perfectly align with our vision to reimagine the future of work,” said Gerrit Kazmaier, Workday’s president of product and technology.

This move reflects a broader consolidation trend in the HR software market, including Thoma Bravo’s acquisition of Dayforce for $12.3 billion and Paychex’s purchase of Paycor for $4.1 billion earlier this year.

It also comes during a particularly active period for Workday.

In late August, the company announced its plan to acquire Paradox, an AI-driven candidate experience platform designed to simplify hiring, particularly in high-volume industries.

Just weeks later, Workday introduced several major product updates, including: 

These acquisitions and product launches mark the company’s latest push to expand its AI capabilities and transform the employee experience.

Read the full press release here: Workday Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Sana

Gusto Buys SMB Retirement Plan Provider Guideline

Ahead of a wave of September activity, late August saw important news for small business owners: Gusto, which offers HR, benefits, and payroll software, has entered an agreement to acquire Guideline, a retirement platform managing over $20 billion in assets for more than 65,000 customers.

The two companies have been partners since 2016, and earlier this year, that partnership deepened with Guideline integrating with Gusto Embedded Payroll, its first and most established payroll integration.

Now, with the latest acquisition, Guideline’s expertise in 401(k) management allows Gusto to deliver more seamless and impactful retirement services for small and growing businesses, all within a single platform.

Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Read the full press release here: Guideline Enters Agreement to be Acquired by Gusto

ADP Introduces New AI Features to Address HR’s Biggest Challenges

At its 2025 Innovation Day this September, ADP introduced new AI-powered capabilities across Workforce Now, Global Payroll, and Lyric HCM, built to solve some of HR’s most persistent operational challenges.

The tools flag payroll anomalies before errors occur, deliver instant workforce insights and reports, monitor compliance across 140+ countries, and personalize learning recommendations.

All features leverage the company’s AI-enhanced platform, ADP Assist. They are designed to reduce manual work and errors and help HR teams focus on strategic priorities.

Read the full press release here: ADP Unveils AI Features Built for HR’s Biggest Challenges at Innovation Day 2025

Wellhub Completes $600 Million Deal to Create the “Gold Standard” for Corporate Wellness

On September 5, Wellhub completed its $600 million acquisition of Urban Sports Club, forming one of the world’s largest corporate wellness providers with a unique model built to deliver high employee engagement, a critical challenge for companies worldwide.

The deal we initially reported on earlier this year aims to address growing employee dissatisfaction with traditional benefits by integrating wellness into daily work life.

Cesar Carvalho, Wellhub’s Co-Founder and CEO, called it “the creation of the gold standard for employee well-being,” noting that the focus is on benefits employees will actually use.

The combined company now serves 39,000 corporate clients in 18 countries, connecting five million employees with 97,000 wellness partners.

Read the full press release here: Wellhub and Urban Sports Club Unite in $600M Deal to Create the Gold Standard for Corporate Wellness and Drive Higher Employee Engagement 

Nayya Buys Northstar and Launches First-of-its-Kind SuperAgent to Support Employee Benefits

In line with the wave of AI-powered HR innovation, Nayya, the AI-driven health and wealth adviser, has acquired financial wellness company Northstar and launched its SuperAgent, a first-of-its-kind solution designed to make employee benefits stronger, simpler, and more transparent.

The agentic AI solution leverages Nayya’s proprietary data platform, which analyzes employee demographics, financial data, plan designs, and medical networks, to provide actionable insights.

At the same time, Northstar brings financial planning expertise and a team of Certified Financial Planners, creating the first unified platform for both health and wealth benefits.

The combined solution helps workers navigate complex decisions about retirement, insurance, savings, taxes, and more, while helping HR teams improve engagement and utilization year-round.

Unlike traditional benefits tools, it can automatically enroll employees in wellness programs or appeal denied claims with consent, processing over 20 million employee data points.

“Employers are questioning the value of the millions of dollars they are spending on employee benefits, and 74% of employees in 2025 report that they don’t even understand what most of their benefits can do,” said Nayya CEO Sina Chehrazi, adding that the new solution will dramatically simplify and personalize health and wealth decisions.

The SuperAgent is available by invitation and will enter general availability in 2026.

Read the full press release here: Nayya Acquires Northstar and Unveils First-of-its-Kind Agentic AI Health and Wealth Benefits Solution

Family First Expands Caregiver Support to Small and Mid-Sized Businesses

Family First has launched Digital Access and Digital Access Plus, two new solutions designed to help small and mid-sized businesses support caregiving employees.

The offerings extend caregiver benefits, traditionally available at large companies, to organizations with up to 1,000 benefit-eligible workers.

Evan Falchuk, CEO of Family First, noted that caregiving impacts businesses of every size as millions of Americans balance work and caregiving.

“For the first time, Family First is making available the kind of impactful solution that is typically only seen at big employers to the small and medium-sized businesses that are the backbone of our economy,” said Falchuk.

Digital Access provides self-service tools such as a caregiver dashboard, community resource finder, and shared calendars, while Digital Access Plus adds reporting, engagement templates, and an annual caregiver support webinar.

Both plans renew automatically with minimal administrative burden and no implementation fees.

Read the full press release here: Family First Launches Digital Access Solutions to Support Caregiving Employees at Small and Mid-Sized Businesses

Payscale Acquires Datapeople to Link Compensation and Recruiting

We end this monthly round-up with news of Payscale acquiring the AI-powered recruiting platform Datapeople, positioning the company to bridge the gap between talent acquisition and compensation.

The move comes amid new pay transparency legislation in states like California, New York, and Colorado, pressuring HR leaders to reconsider how they handle and communicate pay.

“With Datapeople, we can now connect the dots between pay benchmarking, salary ranges, job profiles, and published postings to ensure more equitable and competitive pay across every role,” said Chris Hays, CEO of Payscale.

Payscale’s job profiling and benchmarking solutions remain in place, complemented by Datapeople’s recruiting and compliance support. 

Together, the solutions create a unified system for hiring, fair pay, and employee support.

Read the full press release here: Payscale Acquires AI-Powered Recruiting Platform Datapeople, Creating Alignment Between Talent Acquisition and Compensation

Written by tamara jovanovska

Content Writer at Shortlister

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