SAP’s vision for the AI era

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. SAP is gearing up for his or her Connect 2025 conference with a daring message: AI is the brand new backbone of enterprise workflows.

As teams race to make faster, smarter decisions, the worldwide tech leader says the true unlock will come from AI agents running on a unified data foundation, capable of see, predict, and act across supply chains, finance, procurement, and customer experience.

To grasp how SAP is driving this transformation, we sat down with Muhammad Alam, Chief Product Officer, for an exclusive Q&A.

In today’s AI rundown:

• Built-in AI turns real-time data into value

• Agents ‘scout’ to take proactive actions

• Trust and lively support, from day one

• More workflows set to remodel

• Localization flexibility with full compliance

• The long run of labor with AI

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

SAP AI STACK

🤖 Built-in AI turns real-time data into value

The Rundown: While many enterprises are racing to integrate AI by bolting on latest tools, SAP is taking a special path and baking AI and agents directly into its core business suite, all powered by a unified data foundation.

Cheung: What’s SAP’s secret sauce on the subject of AI? How do you help businesses make smarter/faster decisions across functions?

Alam: First, what makes SAP Business AI unique is that it’s powered by semantically wealthy, real-time data from SAP applications that cut across end-to-end business processes similar to Finance, Spend, Supply Chain, Human Capital Management and Customer Experience. This breadth provides the broadest context to AI, enabling higher recommendations and more accurate results.

Second, SAP Business AI is natively embedded within the applications users use daily — each through in-application capabilities in addition to via SAP Joule. This makes adoption, and hence the conclusion of value, more scalable and predictable for organizations.

Alam added: The SAP Business AI can be each role and context-aware. It knows you and works for you as an intelligent assistant. Whether you might be in Accounts Receivable, Planning, Controlling, Customer Service and so forth, there’s a Joule Assistant tailored on your role — powered by multiple Joule Agents and tools to allow you to do your job more effectively and efficiently.

Why it matters: By baking seamless, scalable AI into existing workflows and running all the pieces on a single data foundation, SAP removes the complexity that slows most AI rollouts. The result is quicker decisions, proactive insights, and automatic processes that break down silos and switch real-time data into measurable business outcomes.

AGENTIC APPROACH

🔥 Agents ‘scout’ to take proactive actions

The Rundown: Along with a prompt-based copilot, SAP goes all in on agents, which act like digital scouts and proactively track ops to flag issues and automate fixes, delivering faster planning, higher accuracy, and massive efficiency gains.

Cheung: How do SAP’s agents solve problems before they occur in several business environments? Are you able to share some AI success stories?

Alam: Our Assistants and their agents don’t just wait for instructions — they act proactively, predict outcomes, and help keep your enterprise running easily. In supply chain, an Assistant instructs its Agents to detect potential stock-outs or logistical delays early and suggest fixes. In HR, they guide employees through onboarding and recommend personalized learning paths.

It’s like having a team of digital scouts — all the time looking out. With SAP because the control tower, uncertainty becomes visibility — and visibility is a robust advantage.

Why it matters: Proactive AI agents turn SAP’s business suite into an lively problem-solver, helping corporations move from firefighting to future-proofing their business by slashing time, reducing errors, and staying ahead of disruptions before they impact the underside line.

TRUST

🦄 Trust and lively support, from day one

The Rundown: When AI is baked right into the business suite, customers can have questions on safety and the way their data is being protected and used.

Cheung: How does SAP ensure its AI offerings remain not only powerful but additionally trustworthy, protected, and simple to make use of for patrons?

Alam: SAP builds AI you possibly can trust, use, and depend on. Every feature undergoes an ethics review and aligns with global standards similar to the EU AI Act and UNESCO principles. Data privacy, user roles, and human oversight are built into Joule and our agents, so that you remain on top of things.

At the identical time, SAP AI is powerful: it delivers insights across your enterprise, automates routine tasks, and integrates seamlessly along with your processes. And it’s easy to make use of: intuitive interfaces and conversational tools enable natural interaction, while SAP ensures that guarantees made are guarantees kept — from order to delivery to service.

Why it matters: Businesses can innovate confidently, knowing their AI is secure, compliant, and backed by hands-on support. This mixture of trust and guidance helps organizations unlock real value, scale AI adoption effectively, and switch insights into measurable business outcomes.

UPGRADES

🧠 More workflows set to remodel

The Rundown: SAP’s gearing as much as roll out some major upgrades for its AI-enabled Business Suite, right from predictive Supply Chain Orchestration and agentic procurement to customizable AI agents and a touch of AI-powered robotics systems.

Cheung: What latest capabilities can SAP customers expect from the AI-enabled Business Suite in the approaching months?

Alam: We’re shipping AI capabilities at an accelerated pace across the suite. So, prepare for some big updates. For instance, a brand new supply chain orchestration solution that predicts and prevents impacts from disruptions before they’re realized. It uses a network knowledge graph and AI to research real-time data across suppliers and logistics.

Now we have also completely rebuilt SAP Ariba Source-to-Pay as a contemporary, AI native solution – the one considered one of its kind within the industry. It means that you can leverage agentic procurement, with embedded analytics and AI agents to handle complex sourcing events.

Alam added: We’re also announcing latest finance agents that automate money and treasury management and compliance, saving as much as 80% of time on routine tasks. SAP Joule motion bar brings your Assistant to each screen, and the agent builder helps you to customize Assistants and the Agents that work for them — with zero coding required.

We’re even bringing AI into robotics for real-world automation. With SAP, every worker decision becomes smarter, faster, and all the time connected to the client.

Why it matters: SAP goes deeper with AI to deliver faster, smarter, and more automated business processes across the board, helping corporations act on insights in real time and drive greater value across every function, redefining what it means to run a very intelligent enterprise.

GLOBAL VISION

⚡️ Localization flexibility with full compliance

The Rundown: SAP maintains a worldwide AI vision while adapting to diverse markets by embedding privacy, security, and ethics into every product. Lessons from Europe’s strict regulatory landscape guide development, and an open ecosystem ensures flexibility for local needs.

Cheung: SAP’s a worldwide giant. How does it deliver a unified AI strategy while adapting to different markets and regulations worldwide?

Alam: We’ve learned from Europe’s strict regulatory landscape that privacy, security, and ethics are non-negotiable. Our open ecosystem and global standards keep us unified, but flexible for local needs. We close the gap by offering a connected SAP Business Suite that helps you not only meet, but exceed, customer expectations – while staying compliant wherever you use.

Why it matters: With this versatile yet focused approach from SAP, businesses get the advantages of a trusted, globally consistent AI platform that adapts to local regulations and market priorities, ultimately enabling innovation without compromise, irrespective of where you might be.

FUTURE

🧪 The long run of labor with AI

The Rundown: With AI advancements, enterprises will shift toward increased autonomy and proactive actions. SAP envisions that this variation will drive efficiencies and enable employees to work alongside intelligent agents and apps.

Cheung: How will enterprise needs change as AI evolves? What’s going to this mean for the long run of labor — will it augment human work or replace roles?

Alam: AI will primarily augment human work by automating routine tasks and freeing people to concentrate on strategic and inventive activities. While some roles may evolve, the emphasis will probably be on collaboration between humans and AI to extend productivity and drive innovation.

It should also elevate the role of the worker to considered one of oversight, strategy, and managing exceptions, making their work more useful — not obsolete.

Why it matters: The trend is obvious: people might want to learn to work with AI to thrive in an AI-driven future. Employees will increasingly depend on intelligent agents to support decisions, anticipate challenges, and streamline day-to-day operations. Agents will handle the tasks as humans strategize and confirm to make sure success.