SAP wants to make AI ubiquitous — just don’t ask about S/4HANA

CEO Christian Klein delivered a bold promise to open this year’s Sapphire conference in Orlando: “We are making AI tangible for businesses and driving digital transformation so our customers can succeed in an increasingly unpredictable world.”

As part of that mandate, the German software company presented enhancements to Joule, partnerships with other AI pioneers, and new features for its Business Data Cloud and Business Suite this week at the show.

“SAP combines the world’s most powerful suite of business applications with unparalleled data diversity and the latest AI innovations to create added value for customers,” Klein said.  

Klein’s colleague Thomas Saueressig, SAP Executive Board member responsible for customer services and delivery, spoke of an explosion of innovations, in particular around SAP’s copilot Joule and its growing network of AI agents.

According to Saueressig, Joule will change the way people work and how companies operate. To enforce that prediction, Saueressig said that 34,000 companies are already working with SAP’s Business AI.

But for all the talk of marrying SAP’s core business suite with emerging AI power, conspicuously absent from this year’s Sapphire was any talk about the state of S/4HANA, the adoption of which appears to be lagging desired levels at this time.

Joule is designed to accompany users throughout the day

According to SAP’s plan, Joule will become a ubiquitous user companion. The AI ​​assistant will accompany users throughout their day, both within and outside the SAP application universe. The copilot will be able to find data, gain insights from it in real-time, and optimize workflows.

SAP is building around Joule additional tools to make using the AI ​​assistant as convenient as possible. For example, an action bar powered by SAP WalkMe will analyze user behavior across all applications, transforming Joule into a proactive intelligence that anticipates user needs before they arise, according to the company.

SAP also plans to provide its customers with a business answer engine in partnership with Perplexity. This would allow users to ask Joule questions outside of the SAP ecosystem. Saueressig described a possible scenario: Users could highlight a business report on a news site, for example, about new tariffs, and ask Joule directly what this means for their business. The copilot could link this report directly to data from the SAP system and provide appropriate advice on how the company should respond to the changes.

AI agents under control

SAP is also working hard to build additional AI agents. Based on data from SAP’s Business Data Cloud (BDC) and orchestrated by Joule, the agents are designed to work across systems and departments to anticipate, adapt, and act autonomously, thereby enabling companies to remain agile in a rapidly changing world, the company claims.

SAP has also announced SAP AI Foundation, which offers developers access to the tools necessary to build, extend, and operate custom AI solutions. It also introduced an expanded library of AI agents, along with several collaborations with other AI providers to establish an ecosystem of interoperable agents capable of executing end-to-end processes. Here, Saueressig cites Google’s Agent2Agent initiative, a protocol intended to offer cross-platform specifications so that AI agents from different providers can interact.

Agent2Agent and fellow AI open protocols Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent Communication Protocol (ACP) are providing new foundations for CIOs to better manage their AI initiatives while avoiding vendor lock-in.

SAP cooperates with Palantir

For BDC, SAP also announced new intelligent applications called Insight Apps. These apps are designed to optimize routine work through standard business metrics, AI models, and integrated planning functions. People Intelligence, for example, combines employee and skills data from SAP’s SuccessFactors HCM Suite for deeper insights into the workforce. With the help of AI-driven recommendations, managers can optimize team performance, promote employee growth, and ensure compliance with regulations, the company said.

SAP also plans to work closely with Palantir on data analytics. But Saueressig points out that the use of the corresponding tools is optional, in an attempt to allay concerns about cooperation with the controversial software provider — though he did note that customers in the US, in particular, use Palantir’s tools.

Who has seen S/4HANA?

Completing SAP’s triad of business data, business AI, and business applications is the company’s Business Suite. SAP presented at Sapphire additional packages for dedicated application areas — for example, Finance, Supply Chain Management (SCM), Human Capital Management (HCM), Strategic Procurement, and Customer Management.

The Business Suite label, introduced in February this year, is understood to refer to s modular set of integrated solutions: Cloud ERP, Business Applications, BDC, and Business AI, as well as the Business Technology Platform (BTP) as a common foundation. SAP Build is also integrated to help customers adapt applications to individual requirements — without, however, drifting into excessive customization and always maintaining a “clean core.”

What’s striking here is that SAP now only refers to Cloud ERP and the Business Suite in connection with business applications. The name S/4HANA, which shaped SAP’s strategy for the past decade, is no longer mentioned at all. In a 26-page innovation guide published by SAP for Sapphire 2025, S/4HANA is not mentioned once.

To what extent this represents a genuine shift in strategy or simply a rebranding is unclear. Perhaps SAP also wants to distance this year’s announcements from the constant migration discussions of recent years. Many companies associate S/4HANA with lengthy and costly transition projects and, in many cases, haven’t even started yet, even though the end of support for the previous release is fast approaching.

SAP promises simpler pricing and licensing models

SAP’s Saueressig promised customers that many things will be easier in the future — from migration to pricing and licensing models. The Transition Guidance app is designed to help customers move to the cloud more quickly. With Joule as the entry point and based on insights from SAP solutions such as SAP Signavio and SAP LeanIX, the app delivers personalized guidance and actionable recommendations tailored to a company’s transformation goals, according to the company.

As for the bottom line, SAP will offer a simplified service and support model for the Business Suite in the cloud in three levels:

• The Foundational Plan extends the support included with every cloud license subscription with enhanced onboarding. Consumer Cloud ERP customers also have access to transformation preparation services.
• The Advanced Plan includes the Foundational Plan plus a higher level of ongoing service, consulting, guidance, and solution enablement to help customers transition to the public cloud and a clean core.
• The Max Plan includes all the offerings of the Basic and Advanced Plans, plus a tailored approach to supporting complex, enterprise-wide transformations.

“We want to be closer to our customers and support their transformation,” Saueressig promised, reiterating the triad of data, applications, and AI. The business context makes the difference. SAP is hitting the right balance with its solutions, he claimed, with confidence: “We’re not just keeping pace with developments; we’re setting the pace.”