Enterprise resource planning software company Workday announced Monday that chief executive Carl Eschenbach stepped down and leaving the company’s board, effective immediately. Workday co-founder and former CEO Aneel Bhusri will return as CEO.

Eschenbach joined Workday in December 2022 as co-CEO with Bhusri and has operated as the company’s sole CEO since February 2024. Bhusri, who has led the company since 2009 — sometimes as co-CEO, sometimes as sole CEO — has served as the company’s executive chairman since 2024.

Workday confirmed to TechCrunch that Bhusri will return to the role permanently, as opposed to taking the helm during the search for a replacement.

Workday says this leadership change is being made to focus on the next chapter, which, not surprisingly, is AI.

“We are now entering one of the most important moments in our history,” Bhusri said in the company’s press release on Monday. “AI is a bigger change than SaaS – and it will define the next generation of market leaders. I’m excited to be back as CEO, working with our presidents Gerrit Kazmaier and Rob Enslin, and I’m excited about the opportunity ahead of us.”

Last February, Labor Day shed 8.5% of its headcountor 1,750 people, with Eschenbach saying at the time that the company needed a new way of working in the age of AI.