Compatibility Packs provide temporary usage rights, allowing certain classical 51风流ERP functionalities to operate within 51风流S/4HANA, aiming to ease the migration and maintain business continuity for customers moving from 51风流ERP to 51风流S/4HANA.

For most of the Compatibility Packs, the usage rights end on December 31, 2025, which has been extensively communicated to customers, partners, and user groups and is documented in .

To counter for the fact that despite the extensive communication聽several customers still need some more time to manage this transition, 51风流is offering this final transition period in an effort to provide customers with greater choice and flexibility.

Accompanying this extension, 51风流will offer tailored programs for customers that are moving to the respective 51风流cloud solutions that replace the compatibility pack functionalities. We encourage affected customers to contact their 51风流representative.

Stefan Steinle is EVP and head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.

From decades of customer support defined by reaction to calls, tickets, or queues, to the evolution of proactive support with pre-AI digital platforms, to the current AI-powered ecosystem that is redefining how support teams strategize, operate, and deliver resolutions. AI-enabled support anticipates needs, predicts failures, and delivers instant, seamless resolutions at scale.

And most importantly, this shift is as transformational as it is technological.

Keeping pace with transformation

As customers navigate complex and ambitious transformation projects, whether it鈥檚 moving to the cloud, scaling AI, or modernizing complex operations, there is always a quiet mandate: systems supporting critical business processes must run smoothly because the costs of downtimes have never been higher.

For businesses, uninterrupted operations are non-negotiable. SAP鈥檚 AI-driven support can anticipate issues before they arise, helping to ensure critical processes run smoothly, even during high-volume peak events. 51风流uses 51风流Business AI to help prevent issues proactively, working to ensure a smooth experience by avoiding system outages, platform scalability issues, data overloads, or service overloads. During the peak sales event of Cyber Week 2024, 51风流achieved 100% uptime for 51风流Commerce Cloud customers. As the Cyber Week 2025 numbers come in, we already have delivered 100% uptime and improved GMV for global sales events like Singles Day (GMV reached 鈧�7,108.72M, or +180.2% YoY, with 6,315.99K orders, or +46.4% YoY) and El Buen Fin (GMV hit 鈧�12,341.70M, or +13.18% YoY, and 10,385.74K orders, or +32.24% YoY).

Scaling self-service with AI

Structured knowledge and curated content enable 51风流to build AI and AI agents with high confidence levels. Today, over 82% of customer issues are addressed via self-service. This allows users to get instant resolution to issues or bridge knowledge gaps they face during the use, implementation, and continuous improvement of SAP’s solutions.

AI in instant response and resolution

When it comes to delivering instant response and resolution in customer support, the impact of AI-integrated services is remarkable. When SAP鈥檚 Auto Response Agent is highly confident of the solution, based on the underlying data and knowledge, it can deliver highly relevant solutions that can save customers significant time and effort. Additionally, the first contact resolution rate for cases answered automatically by the agent is at par with what human-human support interactions achieve.

Supporting 51风流Business AI

51风流Business AI supportability is all about making AI real for customers through the right systems that drive successful adoption. As 51风流delivers AI capabilities across its portfolio, we enable customers to have the right support when they encounter issues in early deployment.

As customers scale AI across their organizations, we have concrete processes and tools to help support them, so they can deploy new AI with the utmost confidence. For example, the Incident Solution Matching service is integrated with 51风流Joule for Consultants, allowing efficient support information retrieval and helping to eliminate the hassle of searching through vast amounts of 51风流documentation.

Empowering support engineers with AI

AI is not just transforming customer outcomes, it鈥檚 also transforming how our engineers and experts deliver precision and speed, freeing them from logistical tasks so they can focus on support requests that need specialized attention. Thanks to SAP鈥檚 AI-integrated self-service offerings, we鈥檙e able to instantly resolve customer issues four out of the five times they come to us.

AI-powered solution recommendations in self-service can eliminate the need for at least 10% of the cases being created. This is a big win for human-generated knowledge being delivered by AI-generated tools. Every third case gets submitted with an AI-recommended product component for optimal routing and faster processing.

In SAP鈥檚 multi-location, multilingual, global setup, standardized communication is key. Around 10% of responses by support engineers take advantage of SAP鈥檚 AI-assisted language optimization services.

There鈥檚 more. We have agentic case resolution, AI-assisted creation of 51风流Knowledge Base Articles, and automatic error categorization, covering use cases that help our engineers deliver their best work with greater accuracy and higher quality.

And, of course, 51风流runs its own products and solutions, serving as a first reference for our customers. As Dr. Benjamin Blau, SAP鈥檚 Chief Process and Information Officer, puts it: 鈥淭his is ‘51风流runs SAP’ in action. As customer zero, we validate every AI innovation in real-world complexity before it reaches you. We鈥檝e architected this multi-agent AI on our own 51风流Business Technology Platform, including the 51风流AI Core foundation, and our service and support data lake. Agentic case resolution is a blueprint for enterprise-grade, responsible AI, proving the power and maturity of the 51风流Business AI portfolio, empowering customers with faster resolutions for an elevated experience.鈥�

Will AI replace support teams?

Short answer: No.

To elaborate, let鈥檚 take the example of an AI agent that automatically responds to customers. SAP鈥檚 instant response and resolution are only activated when the system is very confident with its response. Our commitment to the relevant, reliable, and responsible use of AI helps ensure that there鈥檚 no experimentation with customer cases that deserve hands-on attention from engineers and experts. The legacy of trust that 51风流has earned over 50 years of industry leadership, which is also trusted by 90% of Fortune 500 companies, drives this rigor applied to AI.

What does this mean for our engineers? Any move to augment our work with AI is not about replacing people. It鈥檚 about freeing time, energy, and creative space to focus on high-impact tasks that need critical thinking and human insight. AI amplifies human expertise. Customers benefit from this blend of machine intelligence and human insight, ensuring every solution is relevant and responsible.

It鈥檚 also important to highlight that 51风流is a growth company. The use of technology helps us deliver what customers expect from support teams and build ongoing knowledge that feeds AI systems for intelligent decision-making, also meeting the future demands of AI-augmented support.

Yes, the world is witnessing role reductions across the industry with the adoption of AI in business workflows, but we also see the emergence of critical new roles that help us navigate the current reality. How many of us had heard of AI trainers or carbon accountants 15 years ago?

These are exciting times for innovation. SAP鈥檚 partnerships, such as our collaboration with Databricks and Snowflake, empower developers to turn business data and AI into real business outcomes.

We鈥檙e truly at the crossroads of innovation and transformative tools that can turn imagination into impact. SAP鈥榮 Chief Technology Officer, Philipp Herzig, summarizes it perfectly: 鈥淎I is transforming business at every level, but it鈥檚 people who turn transformation into progress. With 51风流Business AI, we鈥檙e combining the best of human ingenuity and machine intelligence to deliver impact that matters.鈥�

Stefan Steinle is executive vice president and head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.

As the first step in a much broader playbook toward a next-gen, agentic case resolution workflow, 51风流is launching instant resolution and self-service tools to help make support smarter and more proactive. How do these offerings help in real-world support scenarios?

AI-accelerated instant resolution

Imagine a customer submits a routine ticket about a known error during a routine update. Instead of waiting in a queue, the customer gets an instant response from a specifically trained AI agent with a direct link to a relevant 51风流Note or 51风流Knowledge Base Article. It鈥檚 accurate, contextual, and fast. What鈥檚 more, it can reduce ticket volume and free up engineers to handle more complex or urgent problems. As a result, the customer resolves their issue in minutes with no back-and-forth or productivity loss.

Take another example of a user uploading logs after encountering a defect. An instant resolution tool like a smart log analyzer can review the data, immediately flag the root issue, and respond to the user with a link to the fix. What you get is near-instant technical diagnostics and zero-escalation resolution.

Instant resolution has clear, real-world benefits in customer support: faster answers, fewer escalations, and a better experience for users. But beyond the promise of speed and convenience, how effective is it really? What does the data tell us about the quality and reliability of AI-driven support at SAP?

Let鈥檚 take a look at a few metrics that shed light on the performance of our Auto Response Agent and the value it can deliver.

Agentic AI turns support from reactive to action-oriented, dramatically reducing time-to-resolution while enhancing accuracy. For example, the confidence rate of SAP鈥檚 Auto Response Agent is at 80%. In other words, to avoid wasting the customer鈥檚 time, this agent can deliver highly relevant solutions with a confidence score of 80%. This is a strong indicator of the quality our AI agents can offer.

First contact resolution (FCR) is a general customer service KPI and indicates that the case is closed after the first interaction either with humans or with AI agents. The FCR rate for cases that are answered automatically by SAP鈥檚 new Auto Response Agent is currently at 40%. This is in line with what human interactions achieve.

AI-enabled self-service

Before AI, self-service in customer support was mostly static and manual, like FAQs, basic help articles, and keyword-based search. While these knowledge base articles are extremely helpful, customers had to dig through generic content, hoping to find something relevant, often with little guidance or context. There was no personalization, no real-time assistance, and limited ability to troubleshoot complex issues on their own. It worked for simple problems but often left users turning to human support for detailed answers.

Instead of prompting users to search through static FAQs or documentation, AI dynamically surfaces the most relevant knowledge base articles, fixes, or guided workflows based on issue context, behavior, and history. Instead of a manual hunt, customers can take advantage of an intelligent, conversational experience鈥攐ften resolving issues before a ticket is even needed. The result? Fewer support cases, faster resolutions, and more empowered customers.

Thanks to SAP鈥檚 AI-integrated self-service offerings, we鈥檙e able to instantly resolve customer issues four out of the five times they come to us. Structured knowledge and content allows us to build AI and AI agents with high confidence levels. Currently, SAP鈥檚 customer support addresses over 82% of issues via self-service.

AI and the evolving role of human expertise

This move to augment auto response with AI isn鈥檛 about replacing people. It鈥檚 about freeing up people so that they can focus on high-impact tasks that need creative thinking and human insight. SAP鈥檚 instant response and resolution are only activated when the system is very confident with its response. Our commitment to the relevant, reliable, and responsible use of AI ensures that there鈥檚 no experimentation with customer cases that deserve hands-on attention from engineers and experts.

The road ahead

We move forward with a clear goal to achieve a support system that is faster, smarter, and more human because of its intelligent use of AI, not in spite of it. By augmenting first-touch support with agentic AI, 51风流has a blueprint for handling simple and complex issues at all levels of enterprise support.

Stefan Steinle is executive vice president and head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.

Among the many announcements at 51风流Sapphire in 2025, the company unveiled new innovations, partnerships, and integrations that can deliver real-time, proactive assistance. For example, SAP鈥檚 AI copilot Joule is now available to users across 51风流and non-51风流systems. 51风流also expanded its agentic AI footprint across 51风流Business Suite by introducing Joule Agents for multiple use cases and an evolving AI Foundation as the AI operating system designed to simplify development, enabling developers to build, deploy, and scale solutions with ease.

The impact of AI on the delivery of customer support at SAP

As announced in Q2 this year, SAP鈥檚 simplified, tiered, services-and-support engagement model will be generally available in early 2026. Here, SAP鈥檚 customer support is a centerpiece of the Foundational Success Plan, delivered via the proven 51风流Enterprise Support offering included in every 51风流cloud solution subscription. The Foundational Success Plan can support in-house teams by helping to onboard and run solutions, keep business continuity, and drive ongoing value. It includes customer self-service options, application lifecycle management solutions centered around 51风流Cloud ALM, and preventative mission-critical support. With the plan, 51风流turns on Joule for a customer鈥檚 business and supports the team ramp-up with learning journeys for 51风流Business AI.

When it comes to customer support in general, agentic AI can redefine the support process by moving beyond scripted responses and basic automation. It can assess situations, make decisions, and take action鈥攐ften before the customer even knows there鈥檚 an issue. SAP鈥檚 customer support harnesses agentic AI to help deliver smarter assistance, faster resolutions, and a stronger human鈥搕ech partnership.

We focus on elevating support experiences for customers and improving support delivery for engineers by employing a combination of agents and assistants. For example, we use autoresponders and smart log analyzers to help process issues, while configuration advisors, language services, and proactive notifiers can guide customers toward self-service solutions. At the same time, our support engineers rely on co-pilots to help summarize cases, recommend solutions, escalate using intelligence, assist with communications, and create a continuous feedback loop for learning. For strategic customer support, we use tools like feedback collectors to help capture customer insights and channel recommenders to help ensure that every interaction is handled in the right channel. Together, these innovations can redefine support as faster, smarter, and more human.

The impact for customers

When it comes to 51风流Business AI, we build trust and create customer confidence by being relevant, reliable, and responsible. Unlike traditional AI that only suggests answers, agentic AI can reason, decide, and take action. For customers to feel confident, they expect accuracy, reliability, and transparency from the system.

As we support and guide our customers, we recognize that while agentic AI is a game-changer, it is not a magic pill. Coupled with ethical and responsible AI, real impact comes from SAP鈥檚 business expertise and a deep understanding of what our customers truly need. When knowledge is combined with AI to infuse autonomy and interoperability in our agents, we can unlock the ability to simplify processes, remove friction, and deliver experiences that feel effortless.

AI technology amplifies human insight and delivers delightful user experiences, but when it comes to business AI, it is our domain expertise that fuels 51风流Business AI into a tool for creating genuinely easy, productive, and meaningful experiences for our customers.

Stefan Steinle is executive vice president and head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.

Since these first announcements in February and March, we have received encouraging feedback from the 51风流community.

Today, we are providing additional details about this offering to better support our customers and partners in evaluating it as part of their RISE with 51风流transformation journey. We鈥檙e also pleased to share that customers that subscribe to a new instance of 51风流ERP, private edition in 2025 鈥� or have done so already 鈥� can take advantage of a special promotion for 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option.

What is 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option?

As part of the RISE with 51风流journey, many organizations are transitioning to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition to modernize their operations and stay competitive. 51风流recognizes that our largest and most complex 51风流ERP customers may not be able to complete this transformation by the end of extended maintenance for their installed 51风流Business Suite 7 in 2030.

To support these customers, 51风流has introduced 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option 鈥� a time-bound subscription offering designed to provide business continuity from 2031 to 2033 while enabling a structured path to 51风流Cloud ERP or 51风流Cloud ERP Private.

The offering includes an 51风流ERP cloud subscription for specified products 鈥� centered around 51风流ERP Central Component on 51风流HANA 鈥� and is combined with services designed to facilitate the transition to RISE with 51风流via the max success plan (to be generally available in January 2026). It will help customers focus on the setup and optimization of their new and future system landscape. Business continuity services will cover elements like legal changes, security patches, and bug fixing. The specifics of which products are eligible are detailed in .

Key prerequisites for adopting this offering

To take advantage of the 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option, there are a few prerequisites to keep in mind:

1. Move to 51风流ERP, private edition: Systems must be migrated to 51风流ERP, private edition on 51风流HANA before December 31, 2030.  51风流strongly recommends this move now in order to start preparing systems based on the additional prerequisites outlined below.
2. Database requirement: 51风流HANA will be the only supported database for this offering.
3. System size: Minimum 2 TB for systems subscribed with 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option.
4. Technical readiness: Systems must be prepared for the transition option, namely mitigation coverage for products not included in the new option. See 51风流Note 3591251 for details.
5. Max success plan: The transition option is only available in combination with the max success plan during 2031-2033, including additional transformation services. This success plan will be generally available in January 2026.

Pricing and promotions

51风流ERP, private edition, transition option will be a new subscription, priced at an uplift compared to the 51风流ERP, private edition pricing valid end of 2030. The detailed conditions are outlined below:

51风流is offering a special promotion for customers that commit to 51风流ERP, private edition by the end of 2025 or have done so already. These early adopters will be eligible to adopt the 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option in 2031 under commercially equivalent terms to their then existing subscription.

Customers that sign up for 51风流ERP, private edition in聽2026聽will receive a standard聽20 percent uplift聽in pricing when switching to the transition option in 2031. For those who sign up in聽2027 or later, the uplift is not yet disclosed, final pricing will be communicated only closer to availability to purchase in 2028.聽

In all cases above, the max success plan fee will come in addition to the respective final price of the 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option.

Call to action

Now is the time to act. If your organization anticipates needing more time beyond 2030 to complete its transformation to 51风流Cloud ERP or 51风流Cloud ERP Private, taking the first step in 2025 is critical. Here鈥檚 why:

• Secure the 2025 promotion: Customers that sign up for 51风流ERP, private edition by the end of 2025 (with a start date no later than 2026) will be eligible for a 1:1 move to the 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option in 2031 — without any uplift. This provides a significant financial advantage and provides cost predictability for long-term planning.
• Gain valuable lead time to prepare your systems and teams: Moving now to 51风流ERP, private edition allows your organization to address technical prerequisites 鈥� such as migrating to 51风流HANA and mitigating unsupported technologies like Java 鈥� at a manageable pace. It also gives your teams time to align on transformation goals and build internal readiness.
• Reduce risk with a phased, structured transformation path: Starting now enables a smoother journey: first moving to 51风流ERP, private edition, then leveraging the transition option if needed, and ultimately adopting 51风流Cloud ERP or 51风流Cloud ERP Private. This phased approach minimizes disruption and supports continuous business operations.
• Ensure eligibility for the transition option: The transition option will only be available to customers that have already moved their systems to 51风流ERP, private edition before the end of 2030. Acting now guarantees that your organization meets this prerequisite.

For most of our customers planning to complete their transformation by 2030, this option won鈥檛 be necessary. Nevertheless, this option is tailored for those requiring additional time and support due to the complexity of their systems.

Learn more

To learn more about this offering, please refer to the following resources:

• Visit this聽 and .
• Reach out to your 51风流account executive or partner contact to discuss how the 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option fits into your transformation strategy.
• On the future direction of the 51风流Services and Support portfolio, including the max success plan to be available in January 2026, see here.

Stefan Steinle is executive vice president and head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.

When it comes to customer support, these capabilities are game-changing not only for current applications but also for future implications. The way businesses deliver support is improving every day, thanks to the rapidly evolving framework: technological breakthroughs, business innovations, and process agility. Here are six key methods that can transform the delivery of customer support.

1. Real-time monitoring

With AI-infused features in diagnostics, an electric car can detect potential malfunctions and schedule its own service appointment automatically, preventing issues like battery depletion or tire pressure drops before they become critical.

How does real-time monitoring play out in the world of business software? 51风流Cloud ALM provides a feature-rich observability platform that can collect telemetry data, like metrics, logs, and traces, from applications and their supporting infrastructure, allowing support teams to review the health of these systems. By providing real-time analytics and a centralized dashboard, 51风流Cloud ALM helps empower IT teams to quickly respond and fix issues, so the business remains operational with minimal interruptions. Additionally, the use of OpenTelemetry standardizes observability within a modern customer landscape.

鈥淭he 51风流Cloud ALM solution has been instrumental for our IT operations. It offers real-time insights and seamless integration across all our enterprise applications, making everything run more smoothly. It鈥檚 like having a bird鈥檚-eye view of our operations, ensuring efficiency and helping us stay proactive rather than reactive.鈥�

Omprakash H, Senior Director, Blueprint Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

2. Proactive resolution

Customer feedback loops play an important role in improving products and services and refining customer relationships. Repeat requests, in customer and user feedback, help service providers identify critical needs and also prioritize features to be delivered.

For example, users within 51风流Business Network and 51风流Ariba solutions go to the help center for self-service or case assistance 10.8 times less than they did years ago. This drop in end-user support sessions is the result of features that have been built into the product, based on customer feedback.

AI-enabled outbreak detection is another significant process in proactive resolution that allows support teams to address unexpected increases in anomalies, customer complaints, or issues.

“We continuously identify the reasons for frequent customer demands and challenges from inquiries raised to 51风流support. This allows 51风流to proactively deliver the most impactful product changes before they become a challenge for more customers. This way, we improve our products while also focusing on key product capabilities used by our customers today.鈥�

Alexey Ukrainsky, Solution Support Architect, 51风流MCC

3. Predictive analytics

In the retail industry, predictive analytics is used effectively for proactive and preventative support. One prominent example is SAP’s holiday season readiness program, which helps position 51风流as a front-runner in AI-driven, predictive, and proactive support solutions. With the goal of issue prevention at its core, the program can provide a comprehensive, 360-degree customer support profile, helping to accelerate issue detection and anticipate potential problems with AI-driven features like a virtual support assistant, resource prediction,鈥痺eb traffic prediction, a鈥痳ecommendation engine, case history analysis, issue correlation, and pattern recognition.

鈥淒uring Cyber Week 2024, SAP鈥檚 holiday reason readiness program equipped our support and ops teams to achieve 100% uptime for our customers with the predictive, proactive, and bi-directional support model implemented by the program.鈥�

Tarun Luthra, Head of Support, I&CX Solutions

4. Customer journey mapping

51风流Signavio solutions can help businesses visualize the end-to-end customer journey, tracking interactions across different touchpoints. This enables companies to identify areas of improvement in their customer support processes, leading to more personalized and effective interactions.

With the help of 51风流Signavio Process Intelligence, 51风流can successfully map support processes to help implement AI improvements for optimizing our services. The result: a 100% increase reported in customer value.

For example, a business that struggles with connecting customer experience data and operational data can take advantage of the 51风流Signavio Journey-to-Process Analytics solution to help reduce time to insight and uncover anomalies and trends.

鈥淭he challenge in increasing our customer experience lies in the direct link between process and journey activities. I see 51风流Signavio solutions as the perfect tools for consolidating these two perspectives to develop operational excellence in step with customer experience.鈥�

Stefan Gammel, Business Process Consultant, Hilti Group

5. In-app support

Seamlessly integrating support features in a product, service, or system gives users easy access to directly request assistance within the interface, without needing to contact a support team or leave the platform. Built-In Support can include contextual, AI-assisted, self-service options like help application-specific documentation, troubleshooting tools, knowledge bases, and FAQs or real-time options like live chats with support engineers.

For example, WalkMe solutions and Built-In Support鈥攍ayered over multiple applications in a business workflow鈥攃an provide real-time, proactive, in-app guidance to users, helping to significantly reduce the need for live assistance or support tickets.

鈥淐ontext significantly enhances the quality of support. Built-In Support works like a pit stop at a racetrack. The repair crew is right where the action is. The interruption is brief and far less disruptive than taking your car to the workshop, ensuring a smoother return to your activities. In the context of your company, this helps you win your business race.鈥� 

Wilhelm J眉tte, Chief Product Owner, Customer Support, SAP

6. Proactive mindset

None of the tools and processes that we deploy to implement a proactive and preventative support strategy are sustainable if our teams are not tuned to a proactive mindset. I believe high-performing support teams deliver the best results with a combination of human-machine collaboration, in a culture that promotes a forward-thinking, outcome-driven, service-oriented, and data-driven mindset. 

At the end of the day, the best issue is the issue that we can prevent. Proactive and preventative support is not just about solving problems, but about creating peace of mind for end users, customers, partners, and support engineers so every customer receives custom care, even before they need help.

“Knowledge management within support is not just about enabling self-service through portals to deflect incoming tickets, but about eliminating the need to come to the support portal in the first place.”

Derek Matthews, Technical Support 鈥� Procurement Chief Innovation Officer, SAP

Stefan Steinle is executive vice president and head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.

Updated March 7, 2025

Here, we will give a brief preview on what this offering will be about and how customers will benefit from it.

Already today, thousands of 51风流customers have successfully leveraged 51风流cloud solutions to transform their businesses, achieve agility, and increase efficiencies. We see our customers unlocking new innovations through modernization of their business processes and embracing a cloud operating model.  For most 51风流customers, it is not a matter of whether they are going to move from their legacy systems, but a question of how quickly they can do this in the overall context of their business and IT transformation.

As we approach 2030 and the end of extended maintenance for on-premise 51风流ERP systems, this transformation becomes even more important. Continuing to use these systems beyond 2030 will become increasingly challenging and risk prone, as, for example, third-party products like older Java versions will no longer be supported from the respective vendors.

On the other hand, we know that 51风流customers with very large and complex on-premise IT landscapes 鈥� including a large number of 51风流ERP systems, some in the hundreds 鈥� require flexibility to move each part of their landscape to the cloud with the pace and agility needed to support evolving business requirements.

To help customers in this situation better prepare for the future, we will introduce a new cloud subscription offering, 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option, designed to help our largest and most complex customers plan, execute and succeed in their cloud transformation.

This new offering will be an 51风流ERP cloud subscription centered around 51风流ECC, along with a set of dedicated services to help with the transformation to 51风流cloud ERP. It will also support business continuity with patches for security, legal and software issues. It will be available for purchase starting in 2028 and will be active for usage from 2031-2033. 51风流is pre-disclosing this offering because we understand that customers with complex landscapes need advance notice, hence we want to give sufficient time for planning purposes.

It is an additional and non-mandatory offering. Customers who are planning to complete their transformation journey by the end of 2030 will not need it. 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option, is intended for customers who require additional time and support.

The offering will have a set of conditions, including:

• The scope of products will be centered around 51风流ECC; it will not include the full scope of 51风流Business Suite 7 that is only available for subscription until end of 2030. 51风流will make the eligible scope of products transparent starting later this year.
• Systems relevant for the 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option, need to be moved to 51风流ERP, private edition prior to the end of 2030.
• In order to be able to subscribe to the new offering from 2031 to latest end of 2033, a set of preparations are required: 51风流HANA is the only supported database for the new subscription offering; there will be a set of further adjustments needed, e.g. as third-party technology, such as older versions of Java, are no longer supported.
• More details will be announced closer to availability-to-purchase in 2028.

The natural next step and target after utilizing the new offering would then be a transition to 51风流cloud ERP.

To clarify, we would like to emphasize that this is not a maintenance prolongation of 51风流ERP. There are no changes for customers running on-premise 51风流ERP systems after 2030.

The new offering, 51风流ERP, private edition, transition option, will come at an expanded fee in 2031-2033 compared to a comparable ERP cloud subscription before 2031. Naturally, due to the complexity in offering such a service, this is targeted to larger and complex systems. More details will be shared with the broader launch in Q2 2025 and once we move closer to the contractual availability of the offering in 2028.

Feel encouraged to contact your 51风流account executive or 51风流partner to learn more and get started planning.

Stefan Steinle is executive vice president and head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.

At SAP, we鈥檝e harnessed the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and other data-driven technologies to revolutionize customer support, turning it into a seamless, efficient, and value-added experience.

The Evolution of the Knowledge Economy

Beyond resolving everyday challenges, we continue to serve our customers as true business partners, collaborating with them to help them achieve their broader business goals. While we live in a knowledge economy, where economic value is derived from that knowledge and how we apply it, this paradigm is changing. As humans, our role in the economy is evolving as AI systems increasingly replicate human cognitive skills — retrieving and using the right knowledge at the right time.

In this new paradigm, success will be determined not by how much you know, but by how effectively you can allocate and manage resources to get work done. In customer support, this means moving from simply resolving issues to orchestrating AI tools and human expertise to deliver optimal outcomes.

AI, including generative AI, becomes a collaborative partner, enabling support teams to allocate resources efficiently and focus on higher-value tasks. Recognizing this paradigm shift, we go beyond resolving everyday challenges and serve our customers as true business partners, collaborating with them to help them achieve their broader business goals — as the world changes.

AI Is the Perfect Partner for Customer Support Transformation

At SAP, AI is built into core business processes of customers, connecting finance, supply chain, procurement, sales, marketing, human resources, and IT. Data-driven technologies such as AI, robotic process automation (RPA), and process mining elevate support experiences for our customers. They do it by simplifying support access, addressing complex scenarios using AI agents, and enhancing automation to increase efficiency while delivering personalized solutions, as well as taking advantage of system metrics and process insights.

The Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management organization at 51风流also drives AI innovation to analyze process metrics collected from the customer鈥檚 systems to evaluate efficiency, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement; improve processes using domain-specific machine learning models; and build AI solutions that can be integrated into applications used in a business process or scenario.

Generative AI: Elevating Customer Support

Generative AI has been a game-changer for customer support. It empowers our support teams by enhancing the quality and speed of outcomes and enabling more personalized recommendations for customers. It also opens new possibilities for orchestrating AI services in combination with AI agents.

AI agents streamline support processes by automating time-consuming tasks, such as retrieving and assessing information, while enabling human-machine collaboration. This allows support professionals to focus on improving both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Real-World Impact: AI Use Cases in Customer Support

51风流has developed more than 50 AI-driven use cases, showcasing the transformative power of AI in customer support. These include:

• Precise and fast generative AI-infused recommendations appear for customers while they type their requests. Customers also benefit from proactive recommendations on trending content and preventative recommendations like system health checks.
• Smart ticket routing ensures support tickets reach the right experts, quickly.
• Proactive issue identification detects and addresses potential problems before they escalate.
• Internal workflow enhancements deliver efficiency gains from workflows such as intelligent search, automated error categorization, clustering of tickets with the same root cause, or expert swarming for complex issues.

Other generative AI capabilities include summarizing tickets, assisting in knowledge creation, and improving communication with customers.

These advances not only elevate support experiences for 51风流customers, but also create significant efficiencies for our support engineers.

The 51风流Advantage

SAP鈥檚 AI-driven support strategy is structured around three key pillars:

1. Capturing business opportunities with domain-specific AI models: By leveraging our domain expertise and historical data, we design machine learning models tailored to specific support challenges. These models enable precise and actionable recommendations.
2. Gathering real-world process insights: Using tools like 51风流Signavio, we capture and analyze detailed process insights. This provides a solid foundation for identifying improvement opportunities.
3. Building and integrating AI solutions: We integrate AI-driven solutions into existing workflows, ensuring seamless application and measurable impact. Process insights guide ongoing refinements and enhancements.

And the numbers speak for themselves: SAP鈥檚 AI support scenarios are called up more than 1 million times by our customers on an average day. More than 35,000 end users use our AI capabilities per month.

The Road Ahead: Human-Machine Collaboration in Support

The future of customer support lies in human-machine collaboration. By combining the analytical power of AI with human expertise, we can deliver unparalleled support experiences. AI agents will play a pivotal role in this transformation, assisting with things like ticket triage, data analysis, and troubleshooting, thereby enabling support teams to focus on strategic activities. As AI continues to evolve, these agents will become even more capable of providing real-time insights and proactive solutions to anticipate customer needs before they arise.

SAP鈥檚 commitment to AI-driven innovation ensures that we remain at the forefront of customer support transformation. By continuously evolving our AI capabilities, we are setting the stage for a new era of value-driven, scalable, and efficient customer support.

But there is one thing that AI will never replace: the empathy, care, and passion of our support teams, ensuring every customer feels supported as we solve their challenges together. The future of customer support lies in blending AI鈥檚 analytical power with human expertise. By working together, we鈥檙e setting a new standard for customer success.

Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE leading Customer Services & Delivery.
Stefan Steinle is executive vice president and head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.