SAP names Philipp Herzig as chief artificial intelligence officer

SAP is reorganizing its AI activities. Philipp Herzig, formerly head of cross-product engineering and experience, now leads a new “end-to-end growth area” focused on AI as the company’s chief artificial intelligence officer (CAIO).

Herzig now reports directly to CEO Christian Klein, and will oversee the entire value chain for SAP business AI from research and product development through to implementation at the customer.

With this new structure, SAP aims to accelerate the pace of its AI development, according to a statement from the software manufacturer. The newly established organization also underlines the central importance of business AI as a strategic driver for SAP’s further growth. Herzig’s team will work closely with other innovators within SAP. The aim is to integrate artificial intelligence into every part of the portfolio. Based on this, customers should be able to use SAP business AI consistently across the entire SAP portfolio.

“SAP’s increased focus on business AI marks the start of a completely new generation of enterprise innovation, and I’m honored to have the chance to help customers make the most of this unprecedented opportunity,” said Herzig, describing his role. “I look forward to working with our team, as well as our ecosystem of customers and partners, to drive the development and delivery of relevant, reliable, responsible business AI that fundamentally changes the way business runs.”

Walter Sun, who moved from Microsoft to SAP in September 2023, will coordinate the development of SAP’s next generation of enterprise software worldwide as Global Head of AI and lead AI product developer in Herzig’s team. Herzig was already Sun’s boss before his latest move.

Strategic restructuring

This is not the only change in SAP’s reporting structure. At the beginning of 2024, the company established a new Executive Board department, Customer Services & Delivery. Its head, Thomas Saueressig, is tasked with driving the still hesitant cloud transformation among customers. Product Development, which Saueressig had previously headed, has been taken over by Muhammad Alam, who has also been promoted to the SAP Executive Board. Like Sun, Alam had moved from Microsoft to SAP, albeit at the end of January 2022.

The changes at the top of SAP also have an impact on the entire organization. It was only at the end of January 2024 that SAP CEO Klein announced a comprehensive restructuring program affecting around 8,000 employees — around 7.5 percent of the total workforce. There was no talk of redundancies or job cuts in Walldorf. However, the management has made it unmistakably clear that SAP’s qualifications and resources must continue to meet future business requirements. 

For SAP CEO Klein, it is apparently a matter of steering the German software company towards the cloud and AI. To this end, the internal SAP structures are being reorganized, as is becoming increasingly clear. In addition to a stronger focus on strategic growth areas, according to SAP, the aim is to “redesign the operational structure in order to exploit organizational synergy effects, achieve efficiency gains through AI and prepare the company for future strongly scaling sales growth”.