Announced today in Seattle, the Cascade Agent Harness gives IT and HR teams one layer to orchestrate, govern, and build AI workflows across their systems.
SEATTLE — October 21, 2026 — Cascade AI, the AI-native operating layer for IT and HR shared services, today announced the Cascade Agent Harness and Workflows. The Agent Harness is the orchestration layer on top of the Cascade platform. Context-aware, policy-aware, and governed, it decides which agents, workflows, and systems each request needs, and runs every step within each employee’s permissions. Workflows let IT and HR teams build their own processes in Cascade and deploy them to exactly the employees they’re meant for.
How the Agent Harness works
Too often, enterprise AI treats every employee the same and adds governance after the fact. The Agent Harness starts from who is asking. It draws on each employee’s context from systems such as the HRIS and the identity provider, including their role, location, and employment type. Then, for every request, it orchestrates what happens next: which agents and workflows to call, which systems to read from or write to, which policies apply, when a step needs approval, and where to escalate.
Every step is governed. Each action is scoped to the employee’s role and permissions, with reading and changing records allowed separately, approval gates where a process needs them, and an audit trail of what was asked, answered, and changed.
The harness works across the systems companies already use, including HCM and ERP systems like Workday, SAP, UKG, ADP, Dayforce, and Oracle; identity providers like Okta, Microsoft Entra, and Google Workspace; service management tools like ServiceNow, Zendesk, Jira, and Freshservice; and knowledge sources like SharePoint, Confluence, and Google Drive.
Take one simple question: “Can I take next Friday off?” When Sarah, a full-time marketing manager in London, asks it, the Agent Harness identifies her, checks her time-off balance in Workday, confirms Friday is a working day in the UK, and submits the request to her manager for approval. Behind the scenes, Cascade knows who’s asking and orchestrates the right path, so each person gets the right answer.
The harness also routes every request to the right help desk, each with its own knowledge, rules, and escalation paths, so HR, IT, and specialist teams each stay in control of their own areas.
One request, every step handled
The Agent Harness also handles requests that span several people, systems, and days.
When a design manager asks Cascade to order a new laptop for a team member, Cascade identifies the manager, checks the equipment policy and the employee’s record in Workday, and asks the employee about their computer and software preferences. It then files the request in ServiceNow, routes it to the manager for approval in Cascade, and keeps both people updated through shipping and delivery.
Once a process works, teams can automate it for an entire group, such as every new hire. The same approach applies across IT and HR, from onboarding, offboarding, and password and MFA resets to leave management, employment verification, and open enrollment.
Introducing Workflows
With Workflows, IT and HR teams can turn their own processes into AI workflows in a few steps. A team names the workflow, writes its instructions in plain language, connects the systems it needs, such as Workday, ServiceNow, or Okta, and chooses which employee groups it’s for. Once deployed, the Agent Harness governs it like everything else in Cascade.
For example, an account unlock workflow can check an employee’s Okta account, unlock it, and log the change in ServiceNow, so every action leaves an audit trail.
“AI governance isn’t a moment in time. It’s an architecture decision, and it has to apply at every layer of the stack, all the way to the employee experience. The Agent Harness is that architecture. It knows who every employee is and what they’re allowed to do, so organizations can put AI to work across HR and IT with the control they need. And with Workflows, the teams closest to the work can build what they need themselves.”
Ana-Maria Constantin, co-founder and CEO of Cascade AI
The Agent Harness caps a month of momentum for Cascade. Over ten days in October, Cascade released ten product updates, from expanded employee and manager self-service and automated email reply updates to the Cascade MCP server. Cascade was also named one of five finalists for the UNLEASH Startup Award at UNLEASH World in Paris.
One-pager
Ten new AI updates for IT and HR
View or download the PDF →
Availability
The Cascade Agent Harness and Workflows are available to Cascade customers starting today.
To see the Agent Harness in action, request a demo.
About Cascade AI
Cascade is the enterprise-grade, AI-native resolution platform for IT and HR shared services. It gives employees one place to get 24/7 support, while AI agents execute the workflows behind the scenes to automate service delivery.
Built for sensitive enterprise data, Cascade is SOC 2 Type II, ISO 42001 and HIPAA compliant and GDPR and CCPA aligned, with enterprise-grade security and privacy controls including encryption, role-based access, granular permissions and audit trails.
Cascade supports enterprise and mid-market organizations with domestic and globally distributed workforces. The platform is available in more than 90 countries and over 100 languages. Deployed in weeks, it can resolve up to 99.3% of employee cases without human intervention, helping organizations grow service delivery and scale support without growing headcount.
Media contact: Jessica Nevers, Head of Marketing, jess@gocascade.ai
