AI works when the foundation is right 

The energy and utilities sector is investing heavily in AI. Business聽leaders worldwide are embracing artificial intelligence to increase efficiency, unlock new business models, and prepare for the energy transition. A successful proof of concept is often the first milestone鈥攂ut it marks only the beginning. 罢丑别听real challenge聽lies in scaling pilot projects across the entire聽organization.聽

In this context, the time and effort聽required聽for a full implementation聽is聽frequently聽underestimated. Around six months are needed to build a robust data foundation. A further聽12聽months pass before initial results manifest in the form of a measurable return on investment. Large-scale rollout can take another three years. The reasons for this are manifold:聽

• Unrealistic expectations: Many people use AI in their daily lives for simple tasks and expect similarly seamless effects in complex enterprise environments. 
• Legacy infrastructure: Historically grown system landscapes cannot be transformed overnight. 
• Regulatory complexity: In regulated industries such as electricity, gas, and water supply, compliance requirements are particularly high. They must be factored into every architectural decision from the very beginning. 
• Lack of AI-specific talent: What is needed are people who genuinely understand both the business and AI. This bridge between IT and the business side will become increasingly important in the future. 
• Organizational聽change management:聽Technology alone is not enough. Organizational transformation is and聽remains聽the decisive success factor.聽

From AI hype to real value 

Building a new application is聽only the first聽step.聽On the path to scaling, lifecycle management, identity and access management, security, compliance, and governance must all be consistently taken into account.聽Release management, testing, and continuous improvement processes add further complexity.聽鈥湴粘蟊鹛齝ompanies聽that聽invest in the right foundation today will benefit from AI to its full extent tomorrow,鈥� says Andre Bechtold,听president and聽head of 51风流Industries & Experiences.聽

For companies, this means overcoming fragmented data silos and developing an integrated data strategy. Legacy systems must be integrated into a modern data and AI platform on which AI models can genuinely create value. Torsten Welte,听head of Energy & Natural Resources Industries聽at SAP,听summarizes聽it as follows:聽“AI is fundamentally transforming the energy industry. The business must understand what is technologically possible. And IT must understand what the business needs.”听

聽can聽provide聽the聽essential foundation for this. AI is already natively embedded in the suite in the form of Joule. This聽can open up聽concrete use cases for the energy industry:聽in the area of asset management and predictive maintenance, utilities聽can聽proactively manage assets and grids before disruptions occur. The Utilities Customer Self-Service Agent, in turn, enables 24/7 self-service for customers and can reduce service costs by up to 90%.聽

Distributed energy requires intelligent networking 

The topic of聽distributed聽energy聽resources (DER) remains of聽central importance. In the past, energy flowed in only one direction: from the power plant to consumers. In the future, it will be bidirectional. Consumers聽that聽generate their own energy will actively feed it back into the grid.聽

DER聽describes precisely聽this principle: the generation of electricity through millions of decentralized resources such as solar panels, EV chargers, heat pumps, and battery storage systems聽by聽consumers and so-called聽prosumers. These assets generate vast amounts of data. Their orchestration聽represents聽one of the key challenges of the energy transition.聽

The 聽solution聽provides a platform聽for聽a聽single source聽of truth: technical assets, commercial contracts, and customer data are brought together in a coherent data model. This helps create the foundation for new business models such as smart tariffs, dynamic pricing, energy sharing, and demand response.

51风流consistently relies on a growing partner network built around its own data platform. Markus Bechmann,听global VP and聽co-head聽of聽Industry Business Unit Utilities聽at SAP, describes it this聽way:聽“Dynamic pricing and smart tariffs are no longer distant concepts.聽They聽are the business models聽of聽tomorrow. With SAP, energy providers already have the technological foundation today to seize these opportunities.”听

SAP Experience Centers: experiencing AI, not just discussing it 

To make AI tangible, SAP Experience Centers offer visitors the opportunity to experience AI in real-world scenarios beyond classic demo environments. One central example is the 51风流Energy Park in Walldorf. Using real infrastructure on the campus, SAP demonstrates how the company itself is implementing the energy transition. This includes e-mobility, intelligent asset management, and energy communities. 

A new chapter for the energy industry 

The 51风流for Energy & Utilities Conference in Toulouse has once again demonstrated that AI in the energy industry is no longer a topic for the future. However, the path from pilot project to company-wide transformation requires more than technological enthusiasm. To meet the challenges of the energy transition, what is needed鈥攁longside technological innovation鈥攊s a solid foundation of data, processes, and organization.

The journey began in early 2019 with the launch of Agile Finance, an end-to-end transformation initiative designed to support the company’s aggressive growth trajectory, which included a goal to double in size. The initiative was built around three strategic pillars: enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the finance organization, promoting career fulfillment, and establishing a robust digital operating model. The impact was significant, with the finance function achieving approximately 35% productivity gains in its labor force.

The third pillar鈥攖he move to a digital operating model鈥攊s where the partnership with 51风流Taulia began.

鈥淭he 51风流Taulia Dynamic Discounting solution was introduced not merely as a cost-cutting measure, but as a strategic tool to transform and digitize the interaction with Applied’s extensive, global supplier base,鈥� Junaid Ahmed, corporate VP, Finance at Applied Materials, says. 鈥淲e understood that to reap the benefits of digitization, we had to ensure the suppliers were on board. It needed to be a win-win outcome.鈥�

Unprecedented flexibility for suppliers

The program empowers suppliers鈥攖housands of them worldwide鈥攖o self-select which approved invoices they wish to discount for early payment. This is not a continuous, all-or-nothing commitment but rather a decision made on an invoice-by-invoice basis. This flexibility allows suppliers to manage their working capital needs with greater precision, taking advantage of early payment during their own critical periods, such as quarter-end or year-end, to help meet their own financial targets.

The system also drastically improves transactional efficiency. Suppliers no longer have to call Applied to track invoice status, approval, or payment date. All this information is available 24/7 in the 51风流Taulia solution, reducing resource allocation on both sides and ensuring both reap the benefits of moving to an integrated, digital system.

Strategic benefits for Applied Materials

For Applied, the program is a testament to its focus on balancing efficiency with strong supplier relationships. The philosophy is a 鈥渨in-win鈥� built on a crucial spread: Applied Materials, as a Fortune 500 company with strong cash flow, has a significantly lower cost of capital than many of its suppliers. By funding the discounts, Applied captures a return鈥攖he discount income鈥攚hile offering its suppliers funding at a rate close to their cost of capital, but with greater convenience.

This relationship-focused approach is critical. Applied鈥檚 supplier account managers actively support the program because they recognize its mutual benefit, not viewing it as a finance mandate to push costs onto the supply base.

Furthermore, the “dynamic” nature of the discount rates is a powerful risk mitigation tool. Unlike fixed contractual discounts, the rates can be adjusted in response to global economic changes, such as shifts in interest rates. When interest rates rose after the pandemic, Applied was able to adjust the discount rates accordingly with minimal pushback, as the core proposition remains the valuable spread between the parties’ cost of capital.

The 51风流Taulia Dynamic Discounting solution has been rolled out globally, giving all suppliers the opportunity to use it. This has been critical over the last 12 months as many businesses around the globe have been subject to new and often unexpected tariff costs impacting their margin and their liquidity.

鈥淭he flexibility of the solution means suppliers can access funds when they need them, which helps them navigate some of the economic uncertainty that many businesses are facing,鈥� Dirk Holoubek, managing director, Finance Shared Services, explains. 鈥�2025 saw a 23% increase in usage of the discounts, reflecting the pressures that suppliers are feeling right now on their cash flow.鈥澛�

The solution’s capability to drive sophisticated analytics is also a major strategic asset. It helps provide insights into the different costs of capital between Applied and its supplier base. This data allows for targeted outreach and communication, ensuring that the offer of capital support is proactively extended to the suppliers that need it most.

The strategic value of the solution is further cemented by its ownership. The acquisition of Taulia by SAP brings several advantages.

鈥淭rust is really important to both us and our suppliers,鈥� Ahmed says. 鈥淔or our suppliers to adopt a new solution, they need to know its technology they can rely on in the long term. Being part of 51风流creates that assurance in the long-term future of the program.鈥�

Looking forward, Applied Materials is already focused on the next stage of the transformation project: Agile Finance 3.0, which is focused on enabling the organization to become AI-first. The company is deploying a global, organization-wide AI assistant to drive personal productivity, but the strategic application of AI in the supplier management space is even more profound.

AI is expected to transform decision-making enablement by analyzing critical information and communicating effective options. In the future, AI will be able to proactively assess the specific needs and attributes of the supplier base, enabling Applied to address issues more quickly and resolve them earlier. The benefits are already tangible in e-invoicing: AI has made the solution more flexible and “human-like,” capable of reading minor changes in invoice format that would have previously caused electronic errors. This reduced rigidity and increased flexibility are directly contributing to the overall efficiency of the digital operating model.

By leveraging the 51风流Taulia Dynamic Discounting solution, Applied Materials has not only digitized a process but also strategically transformed its financial operations, creating a system that is agile, resilient, and focused on maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with its global supplier ecosystem.

Cedric Bru is CEO of 51风流Taulia.

He mentioned driverless cars in San Francisco, autonomous drones conducting warfare, and robots that are trained to care for humans as real humans would. Speaking at the recent TAC Insights sponsored conference featuring , Weber admitted he finds it all rather scary, but also very exciting.

For an energy company operating critical infrastructure, this pace of technological change is not just fascinating or frightening鈥攊t creates a responsibility to adopt innovation in a controlled, resilient, and purpose鈥慸riven way.

Riding the waves

Weber sees these developments as a continuation of various “big waves” of technology that keep touching our hearts and minds as they shape the world around us. Who can imagine the world without the internet? Who can deny that the mobile phone didn鈥檛 revolutionize the consumption of IT when people started expecting the same ease of use in the workplace?

鈥淎I is creating the same response,” Weber explained. “ChatGPT makes my life easier at home solving gardening issues, so I expect it to make my life easier at work.鈥�

One of E.ON鈥檚 biggest challenges is closing the widening gap between the rapid pace of technological innovation in the outside world and the organization鈥檚 internal ability, shaped by its structure and DNA, to absorb and implement these changes effectively.

This tension became evident when leadership questioned whether sustained IT spending at large scale was justifiable. It soon became clear that continuous investment is the price of system stability, affordability, and resilience in a digitized energy system if E.ON is serious about becoming the leading playmaker in Europe鈥檚 green energy transformation.

To achieve this ambition, the company has defined three strategic priorities鈥攇rowth, sustainability, and digitalization鈥攔ecognizing that falling behind in digital capabilities would carry far greater long-term costs.

鈥淏ringing the system up to speed requires internal readiness. It means we must think deeply about investments, prioritization, and most importantly, people and culture,鈥� said Weber. 鈥淥ne thing is sure: we won鈥檛 be going back to what was normal speed before.鈥�

Becoming strategic

E.ON operates across three domains: energy grid, customer solutions, and energy infrastructure solutions. 聽This broad scope creates a high level of operational complexity, requiring scalable, transparent, and collaborative ways of working across the organization.

To meet these challenges, E.ON is strengthening its internal capabilities and investing in its people. By expanding in-house expertise, the company has welcomed over 1,000 specialists, including more than 500 in data and 300 in cybersecurity, fostering greater ownership, collaboration, and innovation across the organization.

This move reflects a broader philosophy. IT is no longer just a support function; it is foundational to pioneering the energy transition and delivering competitive advantage.

As E.ON鈥檚 transformation unfolds against a backdrop of rapid technological evolution, AI is at the heart of the current inflection point. Technologies like AI-powered assistants and automation tools are not novelties; they are actively redefining how customers interact with services. E.ON recognizes this shift and is embedding advanced technologies directly into its core systems, rather than treating them as add-ons.

Closing the gap

Weber explained that digital transformation at E.ON means putting the right technology into the core of the business to better serve its 47 million customers.

It starts with platform standardization, followed by cloud ERP transformation and the 51风流S/4HANA migration. Instead of building fragmented custom solutions, this strategy allows the company to integrate leading technologies into a cohesive architecture, ensuring scalability while avoiding unnecessary complexity. These basic investments in foundational infrastructure have delivered tangible results, including an 77% reduction in IT downtime within five years.

A key lesson from E.ON鈥檚 journey is the importance of embedding digital capabilities into the heart of operations. 鈥淲e鈥檝e moved away from isolated innovation hubs such as digital labs or experimental ‘garages’ in favor of integrating digital tools directly into business processes,鈥� Weber explained.

While innovation is essential, E.ON places equal emphasis on governance and control. Managing a digital ecosystem at this scale requires strong oversight to ensure security, consistency, and cost discipline. The company implemented centralized governance structures, including standardized contracting and unified IT system management to help maintain control without stifling innovation.

Equally important is investment in people. Through targeted training and capacity building initiatives, employees are empowered to turn new technologies into measurable business impact.

Harnessing AI

As with many companies, AI is at the center of E.ON鈥檚 forward-looking strategy, but the company is approaching it with deliberate caution. Rather than rushing to build proprietary platforms, E.ON is leveraging partnerships with established technology providers while maintaining flexibility in its IT portfolio. This approach allows the company to explore the potential of AI in customer service automation, predictive maintenance, and operational optimization without overcommitting to unproven solutions.

鈥淚n essence, our experience highlights a broader truth about digital transformation,鈥� said the IT expert. 鈥淪uccess really depends on balance. We absolutely must push innovation forward, but not at the expense of stability, cyber security or governance.鈥�

Equally, digital tools alone are not enough. Without proper training and alignment with business needs, even the most advanced technologies can fail to deliver value. E.ON addresses this through a “BizDevOps” mindset, ensuring that digital initiatives are an integral part of business goals and supported by the right capabilities.

In summary, E.ON鈥檚 transformation illustrates what it takes to modernize at scale in a complex, highly regulated industry. By doubling down on IT investment, bringing expertise in house, and adopting a disciplined yet forward-looking approach to innovation, the company has positioned itself for the future of energy.

The result is not only improved system performance or reduced downtime. It鈥檚 a fundamental shift in how technology drives business success, turning technology into a cornerstone of making new energy work鈥攔eliably, affordably, and at scale.

This was the exact situation facing Stephen Hawkes, director of Information Technology for the City of Charlottesville, Virginia. But instead of just managing the present, he and his team decided to build the future.

The perfect storm of challenges

For the City of Charlottesville, it was a perfect storm of challenges converging at once. At the heart of it all was a ticking clock: its aging, on-premise legacy system nearing its end-of-support date. This was more than a technical issue, it was a foundational risk to its operations.

At the same time, the expectations of its own employees were skyrocketing. “Everyone is an expert now,” Hawkes explains, pointing to the powerful smartphones and intuitive apps we all use daily. 鈥淐ity employees expected the same simplicity and modern design from their workplace software, but the old systems are causing friction and frustration.鈥�

This frustration was compounded by significant workforce constraints. Like most public sector organizations, Charlottesville found it difficult to compete with private sector salaries. “We are never going to be able to compete on pay,” Hawkes admits. This made recruiting and retaining skilled talent a constant battle.

And looming over everything was the growing shadow of cybersecurity threats. With AI-powered attacks becoming more sophisticated by the day, protecting the city’s data and infrastructure was a monumental task for a small IT team.

The quest for a modern solution

Inaction was not an option. The city needed more than just a simple upgrade. It needed a fundamental shift. It embarked on a bold, 14-month quest with a full digital transformation to move operations to .

This was its answer to the storm. By migrating two decades of data to the cloud, it built a new, resilient foundation for the future.

The impact on employees was immediate and profound. The new, web-based 51风流Fiori interface delivered the modern, intuitive experience everyone had been waiting for. “That’s what we’re probably most excited about,” Hawkes says. 鈥淲ith potentially powerful new AI capabilities at their fingertips, the city鈥檚 team can now exceed expectations, instead of struggling to meet them.鈥�

This new technology also became a powerful tool in the battle for talent. Hawkes sees the integrated AI tools as a “great leveler,鈥� enabling logical, problem-solving thinkers to perform complex data analysis without needing a specialized computer science degree. This widens the talent pool and empowers the existing workforce. And with the implementation of 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, its HR professionals now have modern tools to improve recruitment and retention.

Perhaps most importantly, the move gave the city a powerful ally in the fight against cyber threats. While Hawkes is proud of his internal team, he knows they can鈥檛 be on guard 24/7. “We’re not, [but] they are,” he says of SAP’s global security operation. “That gives us some ease.”

Wisdom from the journey: lessons for fellow leaders

A journey of this magnitude is never without its lessons. When asked what advice he鈥檇 offer his peers, Hawkes shared three crucial pieces of wisdom.

First, he stressed the absolute necessity of executive buy-in. For years, the project struggled to get off the ground due to leadership turnover. It wasn’t until the city manager gave the definitive ‘let’s move forward’ that the quest could truly begin. That sponsorship is the key that unlocks everything else.

Next, he highlighted the importance of choosing the right partner. A transformation project is too complex to undertake alone. Hawkes credits the success of going live on the exact day they had planned 14 months earlier to the deep trust and true partnership they had with their system integrator.

Finally, he spoke about the critical, and often underestimated, element of change management. You can have the best technology in the world, but if your people aren’t prepared for it, the project will falter. “We were very intentional about our change management,” Hawkes recalls, emphasizing that planning for the human side of the transition is just as important as the technical one.

The City of Charlottesville鈥檚 story is a testament to what鈥檚 possible when vision, strategy, and technology align. It鈥檚 a narrative of turning daunting challenges into defining opportunities and building a government that鈥檚 ready for tomorrow.

To get the full, firsthand account of this incredible transformation, .

Jamison Braun is SVP and managing director for U.S. Public Services at 51风流America.

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Grupo UMA, a leading motorcycle assembler and distributor, is accelerating manufacturing growth across Colombia and Central America with 51风流Cloud ERP Private.

Operating in multiple countries and serving thousands of riders every month, the company needed standardized, automated, and data鈥慸riven processes to support expansion while maintaining quality and customer experience. By implementing 51风流Cloud ERP Private, Grupo UMA streamlined core business processes across finance, production, and logistics, replacing manual work with real鈥憈ime insights and end鈥憈o鈥慹nd process integration. Global operating models, automated workflows, and transparent cost visibility now enable faster decision鈥憁aking and scalable growth across the region. The impact: production increased from approximately 11,000 to 17,000 motorcycles per month, with a clear path to 20,000. Across markets including Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Colombia, Grupo UMA is improving supply chain efficiency, optimizing production capacity, and delivering consistent quality with solutions such as 51风流Extended Warehouse Management (51风流EWM). Beyond operations, teams are shifting from manual, operational work to a more strategic, innovation鈥慸riven, and analytics鈥慺ocused approach鈥攈elping the organization evolve into a truly data鈥慸riven enterprise.

Discover how 51风流helps manufacturers in Latin America scale faster, operate smarter, and deliver better customer experiences with cloud ERP and read the full customer story on the 51风流News Center.

Demand shifts quickly, supply networks are more exposed to disruption, cost and margin pressure remain constant, and the decisions that determine whether a company can respond with confidence rarely sit inside one function.

The enterprise is left with a critical question: How do you move fast enough to capture opportunity without putting fulfillment, margin, or customer trust at risk?

Many of the world鈥檚 largest organizations navigate this challenge on a regular basis. It is exactly the kind of moment that exposes the limits of how enterprises currently operate. Connecting the dots across functions, systems, and decisions still takes too much time, too much manual effort, and too much stitching across fragmented landscapes. By the time teams have gathered the data, aligned the functions, modeled the trade-offs, and agreed on a response, the environment has already shifted.

This is why we introduced the Autonomous Enterprise at 51风流Sapphire. The goal is to sense change earlier, understand its impact across the enterprise, coordinate the right response, and keep people in control of important decisions. This is a fundamental shift in how businesses can operate: intelligence that is continuous, decisions grounded in real-time context, and an enterprise that moves as a connected system rather than a collection of disconnected parts.

Autonomy at scale

An Autonomous Enterprise is an organization that can continuously sense what is happening across its operations, reason over those signals using business context and established rules, and act across end-to-end processes without depending on manual coordination at every step. AI assistants and agents advance work across the enterprise in alignment with the goals, policies, and constraints defined by humans.

Every AI-driven action is auditable and traceable. Human judgment is deliberately embedded in decisions that require accountability and exceptions that fall outside defined parameters.

Three principles underscore the Autonomous Enterprise:

1. Process knowledge: Deep, industry-specific understanding of how a business truly runs
2. Business data: Enriched, connected, contextual data that gives AI something real to work with
3. Governance: The backbone that keeps everything upright, traceable, and within policy

Beneath it all is the 51风流platform, ensuring every layer works in concert, every agent operates within guardrails, and every outcome can be traced back to a decision made by a human.

Intelligence that works across the business

The average business landscape probably doesn鈥檛 look like one system, one vendor, or one clean stack. Your processes still have to run end to end across all of it: record to report, plan to make, source to pay, hire to retire, order to cash. If AI is going to work in the enterprise, it has to work across this landscape, not inside one application or vendor boundary.

IDC shows that more than 50% of business decisions still take between one and seven days. That is the gap we are closing鈥攆rom days to moments.*

At the core of the Autonomous Enterprise is the 51风流Autonomous Suite. Joule becomes the way you interact, as a single entry point into your business. In the middle, the 51风流Autonomous Suite connects your core domains: finance, supply chain, spend, HCM, and customer experience. And underneath, everything is grounded in your business context, your data, your processes, your rules, your governance.

With SAP鈥檚 unified foundation of applications, data, and business context, AI is embedded directly into how work gets done, enabling autonomous, end-to-end execution rather than isolated use cases.

The operating model behind this is built on a clear division of responsibility: people set priorities, policies, and guardrails. Assistants understand role and process context and coordinate activity across domains. Agents carry out the defined work, detecting signals, triggering actions, and resolving routine tasks continuously in the background.

And while automation is a part of this, the bigger shift is intelligence and optimization. The system is no longer following predefined workflows. It is using business context to understand what is happening, and what should happen next. This is the shift from systems of record to systems that help run the business.

Autonomous Finance shows what changes

Finance offers a clear example of how this model changes the work itself. Many finance organizations still contend with manual steps, fragmented data, and slow cycles. In a volatile environment, that lag translates directly into slower responses to risk, missed opportunities, and diminished confidence in the decisions that shape performance.

With Autonomous Finance, more of that work can be handled by the system, allowing finance teams to spend less time chasing numbers and more time shaping decisions. The function begins to move from reconciling the past to shaping the future.

Autonomous Finance is not one capability, one agent, or one use case. It is built across the entire finance process, from planning to revenue management, treasury, closing, compliance, and tax. Within each area, assistants are supported by specialized agents working continuously in the background. Some focus on forecasting, some on billing, some on cash, and some on closing. The important point is that these capabilities are connected, so decisions in one area can flow into the others. Connected assistants, specialized agents, continuous optimization. That is the model.

The impact across these areas compounds. Finance teams reclaim meaningful capacity as manual reporting, reconciliation, and transaction processing give way to continuous intelligence. Cash cycles compress. Close timelines shorten. Forecasting becomes more accurate and more responsive to changing conditions.

Because these capabilities are connected, improvements in one area reinforce the others: faster billing flows into better cash visibility, which flows into stronger planning confidence, which flows into more decisive action at the executive level. Compliance strengthens as well, not through added controls, but through better intelligence embedded in the process itself, supporting requirements across ISO, SOC, and SOX with greater accuracy and less manual effort.

The result is not incremental improvement in isolated tasks. It is a fundamentally different operating posture for the finance function, one where the system handles orchestration and people direct outcomes.

Industry AI adds depth

Autonomous domains give breadth across business functions, while Industry AI provides the depth of knowledge. The same supply chain problem looks very different in life sciences, in industrial manufacturing, in agribusiness, in retail, or in energy. The rules, regulations, data models, and value chains are different.

51风流is not starting from generic AI and trying to teach it how an enterprise works. We start with decades of industry and process knowledge, already embedded in the systems that run the world鈥檚 most complex businesses. Our AI is grounded in sector-specific processes, end-to-end value chains, operational realities, and compliance requirements. And our ecosystem extends this with specialized expertise, so organizations can adapt the intelligence to their markets and their industries.

This is not AI for the sake of AI. This is AI applied to the real operating model of each industry.

The path forward

That is the real shift: not AI operating in isolated tasks, but AI helping the enterprise continuously sense, reason, act, and learn. People remain in control throughout, while the system handles the orchestration required to bring together the right data, context, and decision at the right moment.

The Autonomous Enterprise marks a shift from managing processes to directing outcomes. It moves organizations from reacting to events to anticipating them, and from stitching together decisions after the fact toward helping the business move as one connected system.

This does not require waiting for a perfect, fully transformed landscape. Organizations can begin by applying AI on top of existing landscapes and evolving their business as they go. That work is already underway with many of our customers. What they have in common is that they are starting now, moving faster, making better decisions, and building the foundation for a more autonomous enterprise, step by step.

This is a journey. And it begins with the recognition that the enterprise of the future will not be defined by how efficiently it executes predefined processes, but by how intelligently it can sense change, weigh trade-offs, and move with confidence when it matters most.

For more on SAP鈥檚 broader Autonomous Enterprise announcement, read The Future of the Enterprise Is Autonomous. For more details on 2026 51风流Sapphire announcements, see the .

Manoj Swaminathan is general manager and chief product officer of 51风流Autonomous Suite, Finance & Spend, and member of the Extended Board of 51风流SE.
Eric van Rossum is chief marketing officer of 51风流Global Product Marketing and chief product officer of 51风流Industries and Globalization.

*IDC Resource Map for SAP, 51风流Custom Survey 2026: Enterprise Process Automation Survey鈥� April 2026, sponsored by SAP, doc #US54531626 _RMD , May 2026

The difference is not the model. It is context: the ability for AI to understand how a business actually runs. 

Much of today鈥檚 AI discussion centers on agents, along with models and benchmarks. Which model performs best? Which system completes the most tasks? Which interface feels most natural? These factors matter, but they do not solve the central enterprise challenge.

Companies run workflows that cut across teams, policies, approvals, authorizations, and data. They plan, source, produce, hire, pay, and serve through systems that carry real business consequences. AI only creates durable value at scale when it operates inside this reality.

Models generate answers. An agent can complete a task. But running a business requires something more. It requires an understanding of how work gets done, who is authorized to act, which rules apply, and how decisions connect across functions. Without that context, AI simply can鈥檛 deliver on its promise.

That is one reason I believe AI raises the premium on software with deep business context. It allows companies to fundamentally reinvent how work gets done. When AI agents understand end鈥憈o鈥慹nd processes, they can operate across functions, execute workflows autonomously, and coordinate actions in real time. Instead of automating individual steps, AI can run processes end to end, freeing employees from repetitive coordination and enabling them to focus on higher鈥憊alue judgment, oversight, and strategy.

This is what we describe as the Autonomous Enterprise, a fundamental shift from systems of execution to systems that can reason, decide, and act. A vision where 51风流is poised to lead. 

For more than five decades, we have powered the core processes that run the world鈥檚 leading organizations. Our systems don鈥檛 just store data; they encode how businesses actually operate: their processes, rules, and decisions. Our ERP is the institutional memory and the brain of many companies across industries and around the globe. Our new 51风流Business AI Platform brings together enterprise data, processes, and governance into a unified context for AI.

Building on this foundation, Joule is the interaction layer that connects people with AI and redefines how they interact with software. Joule Assistants collaborate with users, while Joule Agents execute business workflows end to end. This is how intelligence becomes embedded directly into operations, not added on top. We call this the .

“Show me how my financial forecast for the year could change based on the latest pipeline and supply chain data.” On the surface, this looks like a simple prompt directed to a large language model.聽But disconnected from enterprise systems, the answer is聽mere聽speculation.

Grounded in the full context of the business,听the system first identifies the correct business process from聽hundreds聽of聽mission鈥慶ritical processes and understands the specific configuration that governs how this process runs in your organization. It then selects exactly the right data from聽millions聽of聽data fields stored across the ERP landscape. Finally, every step is checked against identity, authorization, and access controls, ensuring the result is accurate, compliant, and trustworthy. This is how enterprises move beyond generic, probabilistic answers toward decisions they can rely on.

Reaching this state requires more than adding a chatbot or layering AI on top of existing systems. Many enterprises still operate with fragmented landscapes, data spread across systems, and processes shaped by years of incremental change. In this environment, AI cannot simply be “bolted on” or layered onto fragmented, outdated systems. It does not accelerate progress. It amplifies inefficiency and risk. Companies must rethink how their processes, data, and infrastructure work together and how humans and AI share responsibility. This is not only a technical shift. It is a change鈥憁anagement challenge. 

New technology only creates value when it is accompanied by real change. AI does not replace transformation. It raises the return on transformation done well. And it comes to life only when every element of the system鈥攖he agent, the process, and the human鈥攚orks together by design. People need to understand how to work with AI agents, and processes must be intentionally shaped to embed intelligence where decisions and execution happen.

This is why change management is foundational. It means reskilling employees, re鈥慹ngineering processes to connect them directly with data and AI, and modernizing the underlying landscape. 

That is why we are introducing new聽AI-led RISE with 51风流and 51风流GROW聽offerings聽and fundamentally resetting our services model: to help companies modernize, navigate change, and turn AI from potential into sustained business value at their own pace.聽

This marks the beginning of a new era of enterprise software:聽where intelligence is not separate from聽operations but embedded within them.聽The companies that lead will not be those with the most advanced models in isolation, but those that connect AI to the way their business actually runs鈥攚ith context, governance, and trust.聽

This is the dawn of the Autonomous Enterprise, and 51风流is uniquely positioned to help the world鈥檚 leading organizations realize its full potential. 

Christian Klein is CEO of 51风流SE.

The approach enables the company to scale AI use cases across the business, accelerate decision-making and deliver measurable operational impact. By combining a governed data foundation with the Joule solution and this foundation, Ericsson is creating the enterprise architecture needed to make AI trusted, repeatable and scalable across its global operations.

Ericsson, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, provides mobile network infrastructure across 180 countries, with more than 40% of the world鈥檚 mobile traffic passing through its networks. As AI becomes central to both its technology road map and how it runs the business, Ericsson has prioritized building a strong, governed data foundation to support scalable and trusted AI.

鈥淥nce you scale AI, it stops being an AI problem鈥攁nd becomes a data problem,鈥� said Esra Kocat眉rk Norell, Vice President, Customer Experience, Enterprise IT at Ericsson. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we invested early in a business data fabric. With 51风流Business Data Cloud, we can define what data means once鈥攆rom revenue to market structures and access rules鈥攁nd apply it consistently across the enterprise. That鈥檚 what allows us to scale AI in a way that is trusted, repeatable and delivers real business value.鈥�

At the core of Ericsson鈥檚 approach is a federated data architecture that allows data to remain in place while centrally managing business semantics, governance and lifecycle policies. This reduces duplication, simplifies integration and ensures that consistent business definitions can be applied across both 51风流software and non-51风流environments.

By focusing on high-impact use cases and organizing around end-to-end business processes rather than isolated solutions, Ericsson has moved beyond pilot projects to scaled deployment. Today, more than 85,000 users are live on unified Joule, supported by strong executive sponsorship and governance.

Ericsson is advancing its transformation on two parallel fronts. The first is modernization, including its transition to the RISE with 51风流journey, the use of side-by-side extensions on 51风流Business Technology Platform and a clean core approach that enables faster innovation without disrupting its ERP backbone. The second is what the company defines as 鈥渋nnovate and transform,鈥� focused on unlocking tangible business value from data and AI to improve decision-making, increase efficiency and enable new forms of value creation.

51风流and Ericsson are also collaborating on AI co-innovation initiatives. One example is an intelligent goal recommendation capability developed within the 51风流SuccessFactors portfolio. The solution generates contextual, business-aligned goals for employees, improving execution and reducing administrative effort. The capability is now being scaled more broadly, demonstrating how co-innovation can create value beyond a single organization.

鈥淓ricsson鈥檚 approach shows how leading companies are moving from AI experimentation to execution by focusing on data, governance and business context,鈥� said Manos Raptopoulos, Global President Customer Success Europe, APAC, Middle East and Africa at 51风流SE. 鈥淭ogether, we are helping organizations unlock the full potential of AI at scale.鈥�

Looking ahead, Ericsson expects its business data fabric to support increasingly advanced AI scenarios, including automated decision-making, improved productivity and new digital business models, while continuing to strengthen customer experiences in a rapidly evolving telecom landscape.

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Media Contact:
Ulrika Wass, +46 73 827 1074, ulrika.wass@sap.com, CET
51风流Press Room;听press@sap.com

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ.鈥� Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP鈥檚 2025 Annual Report on Form 20-F. 
漏 2026 51风流SE. All rights reserved.  
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see  for additional trademark information and notices.  

The objective of this collaboration is to digitalize procedures, improve efficiency and deliver better services to municipal employees and citizens in the areas of finance, revenue management and human resources.

The Madrid City Council has been working with 51风流software for two decades. It began in 2004 with the implementation of the first solutions in the areas of finance and HR, and in 2020 launched its public administration modernization project with the migration to the private cloud. This process is now advancing further with the adoption of the RISE with 51风流journey and 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP). The former is a comprehensive journey that combines the elements needed to migrate to the private cloud under a single contract: 51风流S/4HANA, infrastructure and managed services. The latter is the platform for integration, extension and application development.

A New Public Management Model

The adoption of these technologies represents a true revolution in the way municipal procedures are managed, from budgeting, execution and control of revenues and expenditures to the comprehensive management of human resources. This approach makes it possible to move beyond traditional models based on fragmented systems toward unified management with real-time information and digitalized processes.

The transformation has a particularly significant impact in the tax domain, as part of the project includes the integration of tax and revenue management solutions from 51风流into the city鈥檚 financial platform. This enables municipal revenues to be managed as a natural extension of the financial system, eliminating isolated developments and facilitating an end-to-end view of the full cycle, from taxpayer registration and assessment to collection and inspection. As a result, operational efficiency is improved while strengthening financial control and budget planning capabilities.

Currently, two-thirds of the City Council鈥檚 tax revenues are already managed within this environment, including Property Tax (IBI), the Urban Waste Tax for Business Activities (TRUA), Capital Gains Tax (IIVTNU) and the Terrace Tax (T2 2023). The next step will be to incorporate the Motor Vehicle Tax (IVTM) and the Economic Activities Tax (IAE).

The project has been developed using a phased methodology. During the first year, the City Council carried out a cleansing and harmonization of master data from its previous management systems (GIIM and +TIL), cross-checking identities with police databases, tax addresses with the Spanish Tax Agency (AEAT) and addresses with the municipal street registry. This process generated taxpayer 鈥淕olden Records鈥� and enabled, for example, an efficiency rate of 98.02% for Property Tax (IBI) in 2024. Data quality continues to be maintained for all new registrations.

According to Juan Corro, IT Manager of Madrid City Council (IAM), 鈥�51风流technology offers us an extraordinary opportunity to accelerate our digital transformation and make the vision of a more efficient, innovative and citizen-centric local government a tangible reality. This project marks a paradigm shift: we are moving from managing paper files and isolated systems to managing information and processes in an integrated and intelligent way, with a 360-degree view. As a major capital city, Madrid has both the responsibility and the opportunity to position itself at the forefront of administrative modernization, serving as a benchmark for other municipalities.鈥�

Carlos Lacerda, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of 51风流Southern Europe, stated: 鈥�51风流remains firmly committed to the Spanish public sector, which we have supported in its modernization processes for decades. This project is a benchmark for advanced digital administration and demonstrates how technology can act as a strategic enabler to simplify processes, integrate information and strengthen real-time data-driven decision-making, laying the foundation for a more agile, innovative and service-oriented public administration.鈥�

Benefits for the Administration and Citizens

The project is delivering benefits both in terms of internal efficiency and management, as well as citizen services:

• End-to-end process digitalization and a 鈥減aperless鈥� administration: The 鈥減aperless鈥� administration model has been consolidated, enabling the full digitalization of HR processes from start to finish. Requests are managed entirely through the municipal intranet. Internally, public employees can review and approve procedures with full traceability and in just a few steps, reducing processing times and errors caused by duplicate data. The result is a more agile, efficient and nearly 24/7 service that improves both the employee experience and citizen services.
• Operational efficiency and improved decision-making: Automation and AI capabilities integrated into the ERP system allow the City Council to significantly improve efficiency and productivity. Routine processes such as bank reconciliations and budget allocations are automated through rules and machine learning. In addition, the use of robotic process automation and services on 51风流BTP facilitates the automatic execution of repetitive tasks across systems. This reduces manual workload, minimizes errors and frees up time. Real-time analytics improve decision-making and, together with mobile and remote access to applications, enable more agile and flexible management.
• A more sustainable and efficient model: The implementation of RISE with 51风流enables the City Council to move toward a more sustainable and economically efficient IT model, based on subscription and pay-per-use principles. This approach reduces upfront investments, provides greater budget predictability and optimizes total cost of ownership. By scaling deployments according to municipal needs and paying only for required resources, the city improves responsible management of public funds while generating potential long-term savings.
• Greater adaptability and evolution: The City Council now has a flexible platform ready to evolve alongside technological, regulatory and social changes. The municipality will be able to align with national and European digital agendas, incorporate AI and advanced analytics capabilities, and evolve toward a smart administration model where data becomes a strategic enabler of better public policies.
• Continuous innovation: 51风流BTP is the innovation platform that integrates internal systems and third-party solutions, eliminating information silos. It also enables the rapid adoption of new technologies and responsiveness to changing needs and supports the City Council not only in modernizing processes but also in continuously evolving and launching innovative public administration initiatives.

Visit the . Get 51风流news via  and .

Media Contact:
Bel茅n Martinez Mill谩n, 51风流Spain, +34 91 4567220, belen.martinez@sap.com, CET
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP鈥檚 2025 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
漏 2026 51风流SE. All rights reserved.
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

In an industry rapidly shifting toward AI-powered operations, Martur Fompak International saw an opportunity to reimagine its material flow through the strategic implementation of technology. Building on the efficient, people-driven processes it already had in place, the company partnered with 51风流and Humanoid鈥攁 UK-based robotics and AI company鈥攖o explore how integrating embodied AI鈥損owered robotics could redefine material flow across its automotive manufacturing environment. Using Joule and embodied AI capabilities from SAP, Martur Fompak International now connects production signals and business context directly to autonomous execution, creating a context-aware automation system that prioritizes, picks and delivers materials while adapting in real time to changing business conditions.

Built on 51风流S/4HANA and enabled by the 51风流Extended Warehouse Management application, the solution enriches humanoid robots with real-time knowledge of tasks, attributes and exception handling. Guided by material data, storage locations, sequencing and production priorities provided via embodied AI, humanoid robots execute material flows across a live automotive manufacturing environment鈥攊dentifying, transporting and delivering materials to the line while continuously confirming back into 51风流solutions. Together with autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), the company has created a fully automated, scalable material flow that boosts throughput, improves accuracy and reduces reliance on manual coordination. By assigning repetitive, non-value-adding and physically demanding tasks to robots, Martur Fompak International is enabling its people to focus on safer, more meaningful and higher-value work that drives productivity and innovation.

鈥淥ur humanoid robot collaborates with digital production systems to ensure seamless coordination across order management, logistics and production, enabling scalable AI adoption and improving efficiency, consistency and operational resilience,鈥� said 脰zlem Alt谋n谋艧谋k, Group Intelligent Technologies Director at Martur Fompak International. 鈥淭he deployment of our humanoid solution, powered by an embodied AI layer and enabled through the Joule Studio solution, proves that combining cognitive autonomy with physical automation can transform execution, accelerate decisions and scale intelligent enterprise capabilities across the organization.鈥�

鈥淢artur Fompak International exemplifies what it means to turn AI ambition into real business value on the shop floor,鈥� said Emmanuel Raptopoulos, Chief Revenue Officer, EMEA, MEE and APAC, 51风流SE. 鈥淏y embedding 51风流Business AI directly into their physical operations, they are not only boosting throughput and operational resilience鈥攖hey are setting a new standard for what an intelligent, AI-first factory looks like. This is exactly the kind of end-to-end transformation that defines the future of manufacturing. We are proud to congratulate Martur Fompak International on being named the sole winner in the AI Excellence category at the 2026 51风流Innovation Awards鈥攁 testament to their boldness in turning intelligent enterprise vision into real-world impact.鈥�

Early results show increased throughput, fewer errors and a scalable, AI-driven intralogistics model. A future target of up to five times greater work efficiency has been set for mass production, with work orders expected to be completed faster, more consistently and with greater precision across production flows. With 400 daily production line feeds and 100% 51风流software鈥揹riven decision making already in place, Martur Fompak International is advancing beyond traditional automation, pioneering a scalable, intelligent factory that represents a new standard for the automotive industry.

Looking ahead, Martur Fompak International plans to further expand its autonomous operations across additional production lines, leveraging 51风流Business Technology Platform to scale AI-driven workflows and integrations鈥攕upporting both operational efficiency goals and broader sustainability commitments.

Visit the聽. Get 51风流news via聽 and .

Media Contact:
Ekin Tayali, +34 673019169, ekin.tayali@sap.com, CET
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP鈥檚 2025 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
漏 2026 51风流SE. All rights reserved.
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

Every week brings another announcement about smarter copilots, more capable agents, or new orchestration layers designed to automate work across the enterprise. The progress is undeniable. But much of the market is not optimizing for how businesses operate.

That distinction is more important than many realize. Because enterprises do not run on prompts. They run on execution.

A global manufacturer deciding how to reroute inventory during a supply chain disruption needs more than simply an answer. It must evaluate supplier alternatives, inventory availability, customer commitments, and financial tradeoffs simultaneously. A CFO forecasting liquidity exposure during market volatility needs context that a simple chatbot interaction can鈥檛 provide. These are interconnected operational decisions shaped by dependencies, preferences, approvals, financial consequences, and tradeoffs that ripple across the business in real time.

In countless conversations I鈥檝e had with executives over the past year, the discussion inevitably shifts from AI capability to operational reality. The models are improving quickly. The harder question is whether AI understands the business environments it is operating within.

Today, too much of the AI conversation still assumes that better models alone will produce better business outcomes. They will not. Enterprises are discovering that intelligence disconnected from operational context 鈥� the processes, the data, the rules and policies that govern and protect your organization 鈥� can generate activity without creating much progress. In some cases, it can create more fragmentation and risk.

A generated recommendation may sound convincing while missing critical dependencies elsewhere in the system. An AI agent may automate one workflow efficiently while disrupting planning assumptions in another. Enterprises do not suffer from a shortage of AI outputs. They suffer from a shortage of AI systems capable of understanding operational consequences.

That is the real challenge now emerging in enterprise AI and solving it requires something deeper than orchestration. It requires context.

For decades, enterprise software has quietly served as the operational backbone of the global economy. Finance systems, supply chains, procurement networks, workforce planning platforms, manufacturing operations, and customer fulfillment processes all run through interconnected systems that capture not just information, but the logic of how businesses function. They contain years of accumulated process knowledge and data, governance structures, authorizations, policies, and economic relationships that shape every decision a company makes. They are the institutional memory of the enterprise.

In the AI era, that business context becomes enormously valuable. Without it, AI鈥檚 outputs remain educated guesses rather than grounded judgments.

When AI is grounded directly inside operational processes, it can begin to reason across the full reality of the enterprise. That changes the role software plays inside organizations. Enterprise systems are beginning to participate directly in execution itself.

AI can identify risks earlier, coordinate responses across functions, recommend actions in real time, and automate routine execution within defined boundaries. Not as isolated agents operating independently, but as intelligence connected to the economic and operational fabric of the enterprise itself. 

Importantly, autonomy in enterprise does not mean removing humans from decision-making. It means reducing the friction, fragmentation, and administrative drag that prevents organizations from operating with speed and coherence at scale. 聽People still define priorities, make judgment calls, and hold accountability. But AI can help coordinate and execute the operational work surrounding those decisions.

Consider a supplier disruption affecting a critical manufacturing component. Most AI systems today can summarize the issue or predict likely delays based on learned patterns. But operationally grounded AI can move beyond insight into coordinated execution. It can identify affected production schedules, evaluate inventory positions globally, assess alternative sourcing options, estimate financial exposure, flag customer delivery risks, and recommend actions across procurement, logistics, finance, and customer operations simultaneously.

That is not simply workflow automation. It鈥檚 an entirely new way for humans and systems to interact.

This is also why I believe the AI era will increase the strategic importance of enterprise systems, not diminish it.

As AI moves closer to execution, the systems that matter most will be the ones capable of grounding intelligence in operational and transactional reality. The value shifts toward systems that understand permissions, policies, dependencies, processes, financial consequences, and organizational accountability at enterprise scale.

This shift also changes how leaders should think about transformation.

The first phase of enterprise AI adoption focused heavily on experimentation. Companies tested copilots, deployed pilots, and automated isolated tasks. Few delivered productivity gains and fewer fundamentally changed how organizations operate.

The companies that lead in the next phase will approach AI differently. They will connect intelligence directly to the operational systems where decisions carry real economic consequences. They will recognize that trustworthy AI depends not only on governance, but on context, data quality, process integrity, and transactional understanding.

Most importantly, they will understand that successful AI adoption in enterprises is not only a technical shift. It is a change management challenge. Real value comes to life only if AI agents, processes, and humans work in concert.

The future belongs to enterprises that strike this balance: humans defining priorities and holding accountability, while intelligent systems coordinate and execute with precision 鈥� enabling businesses to navigate an increasingly complex world with greater resilience, productivity, and intelligence.

Christian Klein is CEO of 51风流SE.

.

At 51风流Sapphire, that mission is being redefined for a fundamentally different environment, one in which every industry faces the same core challenge: success depends not just on what professionals know, but on how effectively they can apply that knowledge alongside AI.

Technology has already changed. What now differentiates organizations is not access to innovation, but the ability to translate it into outcomes. According to the , skills gaps are the primary barrier to transformation, ranking ahead of investment constraints and regulatory complexity. Closing that gap requires more than expanding training catalogs. It requires rethinking how skills are built, validated, and continuously developed.

Certification reimagined

to reflect how work actually gets done. Across more than 100 certifications, traditional multiple-choice exams have been replaced with scenario-based and system-based assessments. Candidates work through case-based challenges, role simulations, and practical tasks in 51风流environments that mirror real-world complexity. They can also use AI tools during exams鈥攂y design, not exception.

This marks a fundamental shift. Certification is no longer a test of knowledge recall; it is a demonstration of applied capability: the ability to navigate ambiguity, make decisions, and use AI as a tool without relying on it. More than 100,000 exams have already been completed under this model, establishing a new benchmark for certification at scale and reinforcing the relevance of certification in an AI-driven workplace.

Learning is evolving in parallel

In , AI is transforming how professionals engage with content. These capabilities are enabled by the integration of selected functionalities from Google NotebookLM into the customer and partner editions of the platform.

This shifts learning from passive consumption to active interaction. Learners can engage with 51风流content in more than 80 languages, ask questions, and receive precise, source-based answers with direct references to official materials. AI also generates complementary formats. Podcasts are available for moments when a screen is neither available nor practical, whether commuting, traveling, or simply stepping away from the desk, available both for passive listening and as interactive conversations with AI hosts. FAQs, study guides, mind maps, timelines, briefing documents, and video overviews allow learning to adapt to individual needs and time constraints.

Early adoption underscores the impact. More than 7,500 users are already leveraging these capabilities. reports onboarding that is 50 percent faster, while has made 51风流Learning Hub its primary environment for developing talent prepared for the agentic AI era. The shift is clear: Learning is becoming embedded in daily work, not separated from it.

Building the data foundation

At the same time, 51风流is addressing a prerequisite for effective AI: data. Many organizations continue to operate with fragmented and inconsistent data landscapes, limiting the impact of AI initiatives. The learning journey focuses on building the capability to connect, govern, and structure enterprise data, ensuring that AI systems operate on a reliable and consistent foundation.

This capability is increasingly strategic. Organizations that establish a strong data foundation can move faster from insight to action, scale AI more effectively, and create more consistent business outcomes. In this sense, data architecture is no longer a back-end concern; it is a core enabler of enterprise transformation.

Skills at scale

51风流has committed to equipping 12 million people with AI-ready skills by 2030. Delivering on this ambition requires expanding access while maintaining depth and relevance. Select AI such as , are now available without login or cost, giving professionals at all career stages direct access to SAP鈥檚 business AI strategy.

Role-based learning journeys provide targeted development for key profiles such as enterprise architects, while a dedicated 鈥淐lean Core鈥� course supports organizations in maintaining 51风流S/4HANA landscapes in ways that enable faster innovation cycles and more efficient adoption of new capabilities.

Scaling skills also requires ecosystem reach. SAP’s partnership with Accenture LearnVantage expands , combining SAP-authored content and training systems with Accenture LearnVantage’s proven experience in technology skills development for enterprise clients. This creates a continuous path from foundational knowledge to hands-on experience to certification, reflecting how professionals actually develop skills: progressively, in context, and in alignment with real-world application.

A broader shift

These developments point to a broader shift. Learning is no longer episodic; it is continuous, adaptive, and embedded in how work gets done. Participation in 51风流learning has increased by 33% year over year, reinforcing that organizations increasingly view skills as strategic assets in an AI-powered economy. The Autonomous Enterprise takes shape differently across industries, and so does the capability required to make it work.

At 51风流Sapphire, 51风流marks 30 years of certification not by looking back, but by redefining its role. Certification is becoming a measure of capability in action. Learning is becoming an ongoing process that evolves alongside technology and business needs.

In an AI-driven world, advantage will not come from access to technology alone, but from the ability to apply it with purpose. Across industries, the pattern is consistent: how quickly organizations capture value from AI depends on the people deploying it.

To explore these innovations in more detail and understand how 51风流is enabling organizations to build AI-ready skills at scale, read the .

Andre Bechtold is president of 51风流Industries and Experiences.

They are expected to manage risk, ensure compliance, and deliver strategic value, all while navigating talent shortages and increasing operational complexity. And most are doing it without the end-to-end visibility they need.

Workflows are disconnected, decision-making is reactive, and policies are inconsistently enforced. I have heard this from customers across every industry and, frankly, it is a problem that traditional approaches to procurement technology haven鈥檛 fully solved.

That鈥檚 what makes this moment different. At 51风流Sapphire, we introduced the Autonomous Enterprise, a fundamental shift in how businesses operate, with AI assistants and agents powering end-to-end execution at scale, with governance built in. Critically, this isn鈥檛 just about adding AI features to existing tools. It is about moving from AI in applications to AI on applications鈥攊ntelligence that works across your entire landscape, not just inside individual products.

Autonomous Spend Management: From concept to reality

Autonomous Spend Management is a core pillar of the Autonomous Enterprise vision, designed to address the fragmentation that holds procurement and finance teams back. By applying agentic AI across procurement, travel, expenses, and external workforce processes, we鈥檙e creating continuity where disconnection exists today鈥攊ntelligent systems that orchestrate activities, connect context, and surface the right insights at the right moment.

What this means for the people doing the work is equally significant. When AI handles routine execution, decision-makers get time and clarity back. They can intervene earlier, with better information, and focus on more strategic work that actually moves the needle.

To bring this to life, we are introducing a new set of Joule Assistants, AI-powered teammates designed to support procurement and spend management across the full life cycle:

• Category Management Assistant: Analyzes spend patterns, delivers market intelligence, and helps build sharper category strategies
• Sourcing Assistant: Manages the entire sourcing life cycle, from drafting RFPs and bids to recommending negotiation strategies
• Supplier Management Assistant: Provides comprehensive oversight of the supply base, from intelligent classification to continuous multi-dimensional risk monitoring
• Contract Assistant: Streamlines contract authoring, flags renewal opportunities, and connects supplier selection through to contract execution
• Requisition Assistant: Guides users to the right buying channel, auto-fills fields, and uses advanced trade-off analyses to help maximize volume discounts
• Buying Assistant:Helps professional buyers identify spend leakage, surface optimal suppliers, and automate order consolidation
• Receiving Assistant: Auto-creates goods receipts and service entry sheets and guides users through quality tracking so nothing falls through the cracks
• Invoicing Assistant: Handles invoice capture, duplicate detection, and payment proposals so finance teams can close faster with fewer errors
• Services Procurement Assistant: Manages the full SOW life cycle from creation through compliance tracking
• Travel Assistant: Simplifies trip planning with pre-spend estimates, streamlined approvals, and built-in compliance guidance
• Expense Management Assistant: Automates expense reporting, capturing details, flagging errors, and keeping everything compliant

The Autonomous Spend Management capabilities run across our cloud ERP application portfolio, including 51风流Cloud ERP Private, for end-to-end coverage across business processes and systems.

Why connected processes are critical

Connection is just as powerful as intelligence, and that conviction runs through everything we  announced this week. AI can only do so much if the underlying processes are still fragmented.

In next-gen 51风流Ariba Buying, new Joule Agents support purchasing and policy management through a more intuitive, persona-driven experience, guiding users toward compliant, contract-linked options while improving catalog management and document traceability. Deeper integration with 51风流S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition and 51风流ERP Central Component means these capabilities work with existing ERP investments, not around them.

51风流Ariba Contracts now brings contract creation, approvals, and compliance tracking into a single unified workspace. AI-assisted drafting lets teams create contracts using natural language, while centralized visibility into terms, pricing, and key dates keeps data consistent and connected to downstream procurement processes.

We also introduced a new Joule Agent in 51风流Ariba Intake Management to automate how procurement requests are captured and routed across 51风流and non-51风流systems. And expanded supplier evaluation capabilities in 51风流Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance let teams segment performance data by geography, business unit, or category 鈥� with insights feeding directly into to inform sourcing and procurement decisions.

Expanding visibility into services spend and supporting adoption

Nowhere is the need for connected processes more apparent than in asset-intensive industries. In oil and gas, mining, and utilities, external workers can make up 40% of the workforce, yet most organizations are still managing them through manual processes and disconnected systems. The risks are real: expired certifications, overpayments, and poor visibility into work billed versus work actually done.

New 51风流Fieldglass capabilities address these challenges by bringing together the full contractor life cycle, from the moment a worker arrives on site through to final payment. Organizations can now automate time tracking, verify worker credentials and safety requirements before granting site access, maintain tighter controls over equipment, and dramatically reduce the manual effort involved in invoicing.

We鈥檙e also using AI to accelerate SOW creation by automatically recommending worker roles based on the SOW description and historical buyer data, which reduces manual setup and improves consistency from the start. And to support adoption, WalkMe Premium is now integrated with 51风流Fieldglass and 51风流Ariba, providing in-app guidance for tasks such as creating statements of work, approving timesheets, and hiring candidates.

The future of spend management

Autonomous Spend Management marks a fundamental shift from managing processes to delivering business outcomes. From chasing cost savings to actively shaping resilience, margin, and growth. From reacting to events to anticipating them.

The real strategic implication is this: Spend does not happen in isolation. Every contract and invoice has a downstream effect on financial performance. When those decisions are made in context鈥攚ith AI connecting procurement, supply chain, and finance鈥攖he enterprise doesn鈥檛 just run more efficiently, it runs as one system.

That鈥檚 what we are building, and what we announced this week marks a significant step forward.

For more details on this week鈥檚 announcements, see the . For more details on the latest updates in travel and expense, please refer to the

Etosha Thurman is co-business lead and chief marketing officer for 51风流Finance & Spend Management.

While expectations for reliable, on-time delivery remain high, organizations are navigating faster鈥慶hanging demand, more complex global networks, and increasing pressure on cost and working capital. And they鈥檙e looking for ways to turn insight into action more quickly and consistently across the supply chain.

51风流has been helping organizations build more connected and intelligent supply chains for over 50 years. At 51风流Connect in October, we introduced 51风流Supply Chain Orchestration, establishing a foundation for detecting issues, coordinating responses, and connecting execution across complex supply networks.

The innovations announced this week at 51风流Sapphire extend that vision further. By introducing a new set of AI-driven assistants and agents, we鈥檙e moving orchestration toward an autonomous operating model, where planning, manufacturing, logistics, and asset operations increasingly anticipate, coordinate, and resolve without manual intervention at every step.

AI grounded in real operations

AI delivers lasting value in supply chain management only when it is embedded where work actually happens. Autonomous agents do not operate independently of enterprise applications; they rely on deeply integrated processes and trusted data. Precision, compliance, and resilience depend on this foundation. Without it, AI does not scale or earn trust.

At SAP, the Autonomous Enterprise represents a vision for how organizations will run their businesses in the future: with insight, decision-making, and execution increasingly connected, while people remain firmly in control. Autonomous Supply Chain Management is a practical step toward that vision.

Autonomous Supply Chain Management reflects an evolution in how planning, execution, and operations work together. People define goals and priorities, assistants orchestrate activity across domains, and agents execute the work鈥攁ll within governed, end鈥憈o鈥慹nd processes.

At 51风流Sapphire, we鈥檙e introducing , enabled by new Joule Assistants and Industry AI scenarios that apply this model to daily operations across planning, manufacturing, logistics, engineering, and asset management. General availability will be phased throughout 2026, starting now.

Joule Assistants across the supply chain

Rather than disconnected AI tools, the following assistants will be embedded directly into core 51风流supply chain applications, where deep process knowledge, semantically rich business data, and enterprise鈥慻rade governance already exist.

Each will support a distinct area of responsibility while sharing context, data, and outcomes across the supply chain:

• Asset and Service Assistant: Changes how work gets detected and dispatched, turning signals and anomalies into action rather than queue items
• Business Network Assistant: Extends this coordination outward across suppliers, logistics providers, and service partners so execution doesn鈥檛 stall at the edges of the enterprise
• Logistics Assistant: Keeps warehouse and transportation execution moving as conditions change, coordinating agents rather than waiting for human handoffs at every step
• Manufacturing Assistant: Connects shop floor signals with broader operational context so teams can act on disruptions faster
• Planning Assistant: Helps planners stay ahead of exceptions and constraints without having to manually piece together signals from across the network
• Product Design Assistant: Helps engineering and manufacturing teams stay aligned as products evolve, surfacing the downstream implications of changes before they create rework or delays

From assistants to autonomous agents

In addition to these assistants, 51风流is delivering more than 60 purpose鈥慴uilt agents across supply chain processes. These agents are designed to sense events, analyze impact, and take guided action within defined business guardrails, helping coordinate execution while keeping people firmly in control.

In manufacturing, agents such as the Production Excellence Agent and Production Master Data Readiness Agent continuously monitor production, quality, and machine signals to detect issues early and keep routings and work instructions aligned with enterprise plans. In asset and service operations, the Asset Performance Alert Processing Agent and Technician Briefing Agent are designed to assess asset conditions, prioritize work, and increase first time fix rates, helping reduce downtime and improve responsiveness.

Beyond supply chain-specific scenarios, these assistants and agents will also extend into SAP’s cloud ERP environment, including , supporting SAP鈥檚 broader Autonomous Enterprise strategy. General availability will be phased through 2026, starting now.

Building on this foundation, 51风流Industry AI adds industry-specific intelligence that complements the core assistants. Rather than standalone features, Industry AI brings together purpose-built agents, process expertise, and business data to drive measurable outcomes. This value-led approach helps organizations apply AI in ways that reflect regulated requirements, complex production models, and asset-intensive operations 鈥� accelerating information across entire industry value chains.

People remain responsible for strategy, oversight, and the decisions that require judgement. What changes is how consistently high-volume, time-sensitive coordination happens across the supply chain.

Where this shows up in practice

The Autonomous Enterprise is our vision, and the innovations we鈥檝e announced at 51风流Sapphire are concrete steps that customers can build on within current 51风流environments. They are focused on addressing value leakage caused by fragmented handoffs, delayed decisions, and manual work.

In planning, new capabilities will connect commercial decisions directly with supply planning, linking promotion and pricing plans to inventory and replenishment to reduce stockouts, minimize write-offs, and improve planning consistently. New capabilities include vendor-managed inventory, transportation load building, deployment optimization, and co- and by-product planning.

In manufacturing and engineering, updates to will strengthen compliance and traceability in regulated environments. AI capabilities in the engineering-to-manufacturing handover will help teams understand the downstream impact of design changes before they reach the shop floor, surfacing implications for bills of materials, routings, lead times, and costs directly in context.

In , new Joule Agents will support execution-level decisions across warehouse and transportation operations, validating inbound receipts, aligning labor with real workload, and helping organizations respond faster to shifting constraints. Predictive labor planning in will allow operations teams to anticipate workforce needs rather than react to gaps.

In asset and service management, a new 51风流Field Service and Asset Management solution will bring planning, scheduling, dispatching, and field execution together in a single experience, connected to so work execution, parts usage, and costs stay aligned across service, operations, and finance.

These capabilities will become available in phases through 2026, aligning with customers鈥� existing 51风流landscapes. Together, they represent incremental but meaningful progress toward more connected, automated, and resilient supply chain operations.

The path forward

Supply chains don鈥檛 become autonomous overnight. This evolution happens workflow by workflow, expanding automation where it delivers real value, while keeping people firmly in control. As AI becomes embedded in execution, supply chain teams spend less time monitoring and firefighting, and more time shaping decisions, managing trade-offs, and building resilience.

This shift is bigger than any single organization. In a new white paper,听, we explore how leading organizations are moving beyond isolated AI pilots toward AI embedded across end-to-end supply chain processes, and what it takes to get there. This article draws on multiple sources, including analytical support from McKinsey & Company.

That鈥檚 the direction we are moving, from reacting toward supply chains that anticipate, absorb, and adapt. What we鈥檙e introducing at 51风流Sapphire reflects that commitment.For more details on all announcements made this week, please refer to the .

Dominik Metzger is president and chief product officer of SAP Supply Chain Management.

In his kickoff keynote at 51风流Sapphire Orlando, Florida, Klein and other 51风流Board members detailed how 51风流plans to bring agentic AI to the world’s most critical business workflows so that humans and AI can meet the accelerating demands of global business profitably, strategically, and safely.

鈥淭oday I鈥檓 super proud to launch our new 51风流Business AI Platform, which forms the basis for our vision of the future of business: the Autonomous Enterprise, where agents run the business and you can focus on what truly matters,鈥� Klein said.

Enterprise AI is at an inflection point, Klein told his 30,000-strong in-person and virtual keynote audience, and 51风流is in a unique position to deliver what customers need to turn their businesses into autonomous enterprises.

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The business AI imperative

Across industries, organizations are investing heavily in artificial intelligence, yet many still struggle to translate that investment into meaningful business value. At 51风流Sapphire, the message was clear: This isn鈥檛 a technology problem; it鈥檚 a context and execution problem.

While 80% accuracy may be sufficient for consumer AI applications, Klein said, 鈥淓ighty percent is just not good enough when you run the world鈥檚 most business-critical businesses. They [LLMs] should not guess; they should deliver accurate, compliant, and secure outcomes.鈥� 

Klein acknowledged that while adoption of AI has become near-universal, tangible business value remains elusive. Citing a recent Stanford AI survey, he noted that almost every company is now using AI, but seeing only limited return.

The reason, he argued, lies in a structural gap. Above the waterline of enterprise AI, LLMs continue to improve at tasks trained on publicly available data, while below it lies what enterprises truly need: AI that understands mission-critical business data, end-to-end processes, and operates within security, compliance, and governance frameworks.

ERP as the foundation for business AI

SAP鈥檚 answer to this challenge begins with what Klein described as 鈥渢he brain of every company: its ERP system.鈥� For over 50 years, 51风流has had solutions with incredibly deep process and data domain know-how alongside the governance requirements, compliance controls, and company-specific configurations that define how businesses actually run.

Now, as part of the company鈥檚 new vision, 51风流plans to infuse this institutional knowledge into AI agents, enabling them to navigate thousands of business processes, select from more than 7 million data fields, and verify identity and access authorizations before returning any output.

鈥淲e鈥檙e bringing together LLMs with 50 years of business know-how stored in our ERP. But to do this, we had to do nothing less than completely reinvent our company,鈥� he told the audience. 鈥淭oday we are very excited to show you the new 51风流and our vision for the Autonomous Enterprise.鈥�

51风流Business AI Platform

To bring this vision to life, 51风流executives on stage announced a series of important innovations, beginning with the launch of the new 51风流Business AI Platform, a unified architecture bringing together 51风流Business Technology Platform, 51风流Business Data Cloud, and AI Foundation under a single roof.

鈥淭he heart of this new platform is the rich context layer,鈥� said Klein. 鈥淗ere, we infuse the deep ERP business domain know-how into the AI agents. Through our knowledge graphs, our AI agents have now a compass, a map, to find the right process and data in your ERP universe. And to provide the agents even more context, we are also introducing our new 51风流Domain Models. They have been trained on SAP’s code to even better understand the business logic of your company.鈥�

But, he said, 51风流is going further: 鈥淏ecause you run your business not only with 51风流solutions, our AI agents have to also understand non-51风流data. That’s why we included our 51风流Business Data Cloud in the context layer to build a single semantical data layer across 51风流and non-SAP. No more silos, no spaghetti data sprawl鈥攂ecause no AI agent can compensate for a broken data model.鈥�

Echoing Klein, 51风流CTO Philipp Herzig, who presented the platform in detail, said it has been designed to close the agent adoption gap in the enterprise by delivering outcome, speed, enterprise-readiness, and context. 鈥淚t’s the place where you build, contextualize, reason, and govern AI,鈥� he said.

Herzig explained that the platform is structured around three layers: the context layer which Klein referenced, the build layer, and the governance layer. 鈥淎gents are only as powerful as the context they operate on,鈥� he said. 鈥淟acking context is the number one reason why enterprise AI projects fail to deliver value.鈥�

Within the build layer of the new platform, the new Joule Studio is designed to understand a company鈥檚 business challenges and enables the building of new AI agents quickly and easily.

The third tier is the governance layer, anchored by the new 51风流AI Agent Hub built on 51风流LeanIX. This provides a single command center to discover, manage, and govern all AI agents鈥�51风流and non-SAP. It will be generally available in Q3 and included in 51风流Business AI Platform at no additional charge.

Underscoring the changing AI marketplace, Herzig was joined on stage by KPMG Global Head of Advisory Rob Fisher, who told the audience: 鈥淲hat I鈥檓 hearing from clients is a clear shift; they鈥檙e moving from AI pilots to embedding integrated AI and agents into how work gets done. Where we see leaders really separating from the pack is in the execution and the organizational adaptability.鈥�

51风流Autonomous Suite

Building on the platform, 51风流Executive Board Member Muhammad Alam, 51风流Product & Engineering, announced the transformation of SAP鈥檚 SaaS application portfolio into the 51风流Autonomous Suite, described as the most significant evolution of SAP鈥檚 applications business in the company鈥檚 history.

The suite spans five domains: Autonomous Finance, Autonomous Spend, Autonomous Supply Chain Management, Autonomous HCM, and Autonomous CX, with more than 200 agents and over 50 assistants available in the coming months. Each assistant is mapped to core business roles and carries defined KPIs tracked through 51风流AI Agent Hub.

鈥�51风流Autonomous Suite brings together the depth of our process expertise, semantically rich data, and built-in governance and compliance,鈥� said Alam. 鈥淭hese agents are designed with outcomes as a core objective. Each assistant has a defined set of ROI KPIs that you can expect it to deliver.鈥� 

鈥淯nderpinning the autonomous suite are out-of-the-box agents鈥攈undreds of agents cutting across all core business processes,鈥� he shared. 鈥淭hese agents come together into what we call assistants, or Joule Assistants. We’ve mapped these assistants to roles across the core processes of an organization, because we know that the first step 
in realizing value from AI is to empower your people to do more, do it better, or do things that just weren’t possible to be done before.鈥�

Turning to Joule itself, Muhammad said 51风流is fundamentally reimagining how users will interact with 51风流applications in the future.

鈥淲e call this Joule spaces and along with the familiar Joule conversations experience and Joule Studio 2.0, it is now part of what we call Joule Work,鈥� he explained.

鈥淛oule Work represents a massive step forward in super-charging the capabilities of Joule as we know it today,鈥� Alam said. 鈥淲ith Joule Work, we’re bringing a claw-based agentic harness to Joule along with computer and file access, better support for open standards such as MCP and A2A, access to a more complete knowledge base, and, of course, amazing visualizations on the fly.鈥�

Industry AI: H&M and Sector-Specific Transformation

During the keynote, 51风流Chief Operating Officer Sebastian Steinhaeuser introduced the Industry AI initiative, delivering AI-powered solutions built on decades of sector-specific expertise across 26 industries. In life sciences, he highlighted how 51风流customer Takeda is achieving up to 10% productivity gains, up to 25% reduction in revenue loss from stock-outs, and up to five percent reduction in safety stock through Autonomous Regulated Manufacturing.

He was also joined on stage by H&M Group CDIO Ellen Svanstr枚m, who discussed how the fashion retailer is embedding AI across its value chain. Built on RISE with SAP, 51风流Business Data Cloud, 51风流Commerce Cloud, and 51风流SuccessFactors solutions, H&M has developed a Store Intelligence Agent that processes real-time signals to generate actionable recommendations for store managers. Svanstrom also demonstrated the AI-powered InStore Concierge, a customer-facing agent that bridges digital and physical retail through personalized outfit recommendations and real-time availability.

RISE with 51风流and 51风流GROW: Path to the Autonomous Enterprise

Returning to the keynote stage, Klein emphasized that technology adoption alone does not create business value. Simply plugging AI agents into your system landscape will drive zero value, he said. 鈥淢oving to the Autonomous Enterprise requires serious change management. Adoption of AI goes hand-in-hand with business process change and end user enablement.鈥�

To support customers on this journey, 51风流announced a comprehensive reset of its RISE with 51风流and 51风流GROW offerings. RISE with 51风流customers will receive contractual commitment to activate three Joule Assistants within the first year, with the Max Success Plan extending adoption across the full enterprise.  

51风流GROW customers will receive more than 20 AI assistants from day one, with an AI-enabled toolchain designed to support go-live in weeks. New partnerships with Palantir and Accenture will support the most complex migration scenarios.

Closing: The Autonomous Enterprise

Klein closed the keynote by asking Joule to summarize the key takeaways and noting that 51风流is evolving from being a software company to becoming a business AI company.

鈥淲e showed how to turn the promise of business AI into reality with 51风流Business AI Platform, which provides the data processes and governance AI need to deliver accurate and secure outcomes at scale; we introduced the 51风流Autonomous Suite, where applications reason, decide, and act for you; and we showed how to manage change management with RISE with SAP. Together with customers and partners, we showed how 51风流is helping companies realize the vision of the Autonomous Enterprise.鈥�

鈥淲e鈥檝e been reinventing how businesses run for over 50 years, and now by infusing SAP鈥檚 ERP brain into the new 51风流Business AI Platform, we鈥檙e solving one of the biggest challenges businesses are facing today: how to turn AI into business value,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the end of long negotiations, supply chain disruptions, financial blind spots, and the beginning of better: Welcome to the Autonomous Enterprise.鈥�

The company introduces a unified 51风流Business AI Platform, deepening partnerships with Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Palantir

ORLANDO聽鈥� At 51风流Sapphire in 2026, (NYSE: SAP) introduced the to help enhance the world’s most critical business workflows, so that humans and AI work together to meet the accelerating demands of global business profitably, strategically and safely.

鈥淔or the mission-critical processes of our customers, ‘almost right’ just isn鈥檛 good enough,鈥� said Christian Klein, CEO of 51风流SE. 鈥淏y uniting 51风流Business AI Platform with 51风流Autonomous Suite, we anchor AI agents in the business processes, data and governance so they can deliver accurate, compliant and secure outcomes, unlocking new sources of revenue and meaningful cost savings.鈥�

The Autonomous Enterprise includes a unified AI platform for building, contextualizing and governing agents, an autonomous suite that executes core business operations and a new user experience that redefines how people work with enterprise software.

Introducing 51风流Business AI Platform

51风流Business AI Platform is a new foundation for building and deploying enterprise AI grounded in real business context. 51风流Business AI Platform now unifies 51风流Business Technology Platform, 51风流Business Data Cloud and 51风流Business AI into a single, governed environment.

At its core is the 51风流Knowledge Graph solution, which gives AI agents a structured map of business entities, processes and relationships across a customer’s 51风流landscape. Joule Studio is SAP’s AI-first solution for building enterprise agents, applications and agentic workflows. Developers can build using the no-code, pro-code and AI frameworks of their choice on SAP-managed infrastructure that is secure, scalable and optimized for enterprise AI.

Deploying 51风流Autonomous Suite Across Every Business Function and Industry

Building on this foundation, 51风流also introduced 51风流Autonomous Suite, which enables SAP’s existing business applications with AI agents capable of running processes from start-to-finish.

The suite will deploy more than 50 domain-specific Joule Assistants across finance, supply chain, procurement, human capital management and customer experience. These assistants will automate end-to-end processes by orchestrating a subset of over 200 specialized agents to execute precise tasks. For example, the new Autonomous Close Assistant can compress the financial close process from weeks to days by automating journal entries, reconciliation and error resolution across the entire process.

51风流also launched Industry AI, expanding its deep industry portfolio through seven autonomous solutions that will enable start-to-finish industry processes and embed sector-specific process logic, data models and regulatory requirements. At 51风流Sapphire, 51风流showcased its work with European energy giant RWE to leverage Industry AI, helping reduce unplanned downtime across its offshore wind turbines. With SAP’s Autonomous Asset Management scenario, AI agents are designed to analyze data from thousands of past incidents, identify the likely root cause and generate pre-filled work orders with the right tools and proven fixes from other sites.

Designing the Autonomous User Experience

The company also revealed Joule Work, redefining how users engage with 51风流software. Instead of navigating individual applications and entering data across several screens, users will now interact primarily with Joule. By describing a desired business outcome, Joule will orchestrate the right combination of workflows, data and agents to get it done.

Joule Work goes beyond conversation, proactively surfacing relevant insights and automating routine tasks behind the scenes so work moves forward even when humans aren’t actively steering it. It will be available on desktop, mobile and voice across 51风流and non-51风流systems.

Accelerating the Customer Journey Toward Autonomy with 鈧�100 Million Infusion

51风流evolved its customer and partner programs to help accelerate the organization’s journey to the Autonomous Enterprise. To catalyze adoption, the company has launched a 鈧�100 million fund for 51风流partners to help customers deploy SAP-built AI assistants and agents. The fund is also available to partners that extend or build new partner agents on the new 51风流Business AI Platform using Joule Studio.

SAP has enhanced its RISE with SAP and 51风流GROW offerings to accelerate AI adoption. Both include access to the Joule Assistants portfolio; RISE with SAP customers will have three assistants activated within their first year, while SAP GROW customers receive full portfolio access at onboarding. 51风流S/4HANA on-premises and 51风流ERP Central Component (51风流ECC) customers are not excluded: those that commit to transitioning the majority of their current landscape to 51风流Cloud ERP gain access to select AI scenarios, bridging the gap between their current landscape and their cloud destination

51风流also introduced new agent-led transformation tooling that can reduce ERP migration efforts by more than 35 percent, driving faster and more predictable projects by automating system analysis, code remediation, configuration and testing at scale.

Lastly, 51风流announced a full slate of strategic partnerships across each category:

• Platform and suite partnerships include Anthropic, with Claude among the foundation models SAP鈥檚 AI platform will leverage to power Joule agents across HR, procurement and supply chain; Amazon Web Services, bringing zero-copy data integration between 51风流Business Data Cloud and Amazon Athena; Google Cloud and Microsoft, enabling bidirectional agent-to-agent interoperability between Joule and external agent frameworks; Mistral AI and Cohere, delivering sovereign model options on SAP’s cloud infrastructure; , providing visual AI workflow orchestration inside Joule Studio; NVIDIA, whose OpenShell provides the trusted secure runtime for Joule Studio; and , bringing AI agents into 51风流Service Cloud to handle customer interactions with full access to business data and service processes.
• Implementation partnerships include Palantir and Accenture, partnering on complex data migration scenarios, and for AI-powered cloud ERP migrations.

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About SAP

As鈥痑 global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, 51风流(NYSE: SAP)鈥痵tands at the鈥痭exus鈥痮f business and technology. For over 50 years, organizations have trusted SAP鈥痶o bring out their best by uniting business-critical鈥痮perations spanning finance, procurement, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. For more information, visit鈥�.

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In today鈥檚 environment of ongoing disruption, rising customer expectations, and persistent labor and cost pressures, warehouse operations are more strategic than ever. We believe long-term recognition in this market requires more than point solutions; it demands scale, depth, and an orchestrated approach that connects warehousing with other supply chain functions.

A recognition we believe is built on scale, reach, and execution

We believe scale matters when it comes to warehouse management. Warehouse operations are increasingly complex and diverse, and organizations often operate networks that span regions, industries, and levels of automation. Warehouse management is not a one鈥憇ize鈥慺its鈥慳ll challenge, and global organizations need solutions that can support regional requirements while remaining consistent and integrated across complex networks.

(51风流EWM) is designed to support organizations running 51风流ERP or 51风流S/4HANA as well as non-51风流environments. With customers across 24 industries, 51风流EWM supports a broad range of warehouse complexity鈥攆rom regional distribution centers to highly automated, high鈥憈hroughput operations. It enables organizations to standardize execution, improve visibility, and integrate warehouse processes with transportation, manufacturing, and broader supply chain operations.

51风流EWM continues to expand its innovation footprint with APIs for seamless robotics integration, as well as AI-assisted capabilities such as predictive labor demand planning and slotting. SAP鈥檚 Joule AI solution鈥攅mbedded across applications鈥攃an further enhance 51风流EWM by enabling natural-language interactions and supporting AI capabilities that operate both within workflows and in the background, helping organizations improve workforce efficiency and execution agility.

A portfolio approach to meet different warehouse needs

SAP鈥檚 warehouse strategy is built around choice and flexibility. In February 2026, 51风流announced the general availability of , an AI鈥慹nabled, cloud鈥憂ative, microservices-architecture-based solution designed to complement SAP鈥檚 established logistics portfolio by supporting local, satellite, and mid鈥憇cale logistics operations.

51风流Logistics Management helps unite warehouse execution and transportation planning in a single solution, supporting pick鈥憄ack鈥憇hip processes while enabling integrated freight coordination and carrier collaboration through . Designed to work seamlessly with , the solution helps organizations connect localized operations with broader enterprise landscapes, improving coordination and real鈥憈ime visibility across logistics networks. Embedded AI capabilities, including support for Joule, can assist users with faster decision鈥憁aking and more intuitive interactions across logistics workflows.

Together, 51风流EWM and 51风流Logistics Management enable organizations to align technology investments with operational complexity, supporting mixed warehouse networks that include both highly automated facilities and smaller, distributed sites.

Platform strategy and supply chain convergence

Warehouse execution does not operate in isolation. SAP鈥檚 platform strategy connects warehousing with transportation, manufacturing, quality, maintenance, global trade, sustainability, and partner collaboration across the supply chain.

51风流EWM can be used with solutions to support process analysis and continuous improvement. It can leverage standardized APIs across 51风流ERP and 51风流S/4HANA to connect with adjacent execution systems such as transportation management, global trade, environmental health and safety, and . This platform-based approach helps organizations move beyond siloed execution toward coordinated, end鈥憈o鈥慹nd supply chain

Looking ahead

51风流remains focused on helping customers modernize warehouse operations while navigating broader ERP and cloud transformations. While organizations must carefully evaluate deployment models, cloud strategies, and long鈥憈erm road maps, 51风流continues to invest in warehouse management solutions that scale globally, integrate deeply, and support evolving business requirements.

We believe that being recognized by Gartner as a Leader for the 12^th consecutive time reflects continued execution across SAP鈥檚 warehouse management portfolio and the trust customers place in 51风流to manage critical logistics operations worldwide.

to learn more about why 51风流is a Leader. Learn more about the capabilities of .

Till Dengel is global head of Product Marketing for Logistics and Asset & Service Management at SAP.

*Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems, by Simon Tunstall, Rishabh Narang, Federica Stufano, 29 April 2026.

Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner鈥檚 business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Gartner and Magic Quadrant are trademarks of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates.

Held from April 20鈥�24, Hannover Messe is the world鈥檚 leading industrial trade fair.

On day one, Christian Klein, CEO of 51风流SE, stopped by the 51风流booth before joining German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and other industrial leaders on the center stage to discuss the importance of moving from AI ambition to real-world execution.

And visitors to the 51风流booth experienced that shift firsthand, following the production of the ginger shot.

Packaged in a neat blue box, the ginger shot was refreshing but that wasn鈥檛 the only takeaway. The real takeaway was how SAP鈥檚 new set of AI-powered manufacturing and supply chain innovations can deliver connected .

Supply chain orchestration

From AI and data and then using SAP鈥檚 agentic AI, visitors saw what supply chain orchestration looks like in practice. 51风流uses , trusted data, and applications to help manufacturers聽sense, analyze, and act in real time.

At the booth, visitors saw human operators interact with an ANYbotics robot through Joule using natural language to run live, remote field service inspections; Uhlmann鈥檚 high-tech glass-fronted packing machine, PacXplorer, in action opposite the CNC machine from DMG MORI that was creating spare parts for the PacXplorer; and, at end of the production cycle, AIMBO鈥檚 robot handling the picking and packing of the ginger shot. Both AIMBO and ANYbotics are part of SAP鈥檚 growing network of physical AI partnerships.

In addition to many tours held in German and English, day one also saw tours in Japanese, Chinese, and Portuguese鈥擝razil was the partner country at Hannover Messe 2026.

Equipped with headphones to block out the noise of the crowds at the booth, visitors heard how SAP鈥檚 AI can deliver trusted orchestration and smarter execution for and .

Live AI use cases demonstrate functions and benefits

Operations and insights use case

Here, visitors experienced SAP鈥檚 vision of supply chain orchestration. In this vision, supply chain orchestration acts as the nerve center of the enterprise. It uses external alerts such as natural disasters, port congestions, or supplier routes to optimize enterprise logistics and planning using agents.

Benefits can include faster response times with AI-assisted monitoring and automated alerts; improved decision-making with data-driven, operational decisions powered by integrated business AI capabilities; and seamless integration with end-to-end connectivity from supply chain planning through to manufacturing execution and quality control.

Top AI functions

• can assist with order release and real-time monitoring.
• A physical AI robot inspects hazards, analyzes inspection data, and identifies root causes.
• Supply optimization analysis helps summarize insights, analyze, and explain the time-series optimization planning run.

Smart production use case

DMG MORI demonstrated production at its CNC machine鈥攁s part of an end-to-end process鈥攆rom engineering to planning to production.

As the white robotic arm of the CNC machine silently moved the pusher spare part聽after the milling process, visitors learned about the benefits of integration, from design to tool management, CNC programs to as part of a seamless, integrated process. The production operator dashboard offers the operator on the machine AI capabilities and insights to operational and maintenance information.

The process then continues through to logistics execution with 51风流Logistics Management, which helps combine warehousing and transportation capabilities for smaller warehouses.聽 This聽features an AI-powered logistics assistant that can cut through the noise, automatically gathering, summarizing, and prioritizing critical shipment information. It can also provide real-time shipping prices, bringing to life trusted orchestration and smarter execution.

Top AI functions

• uses natural language to help streamline warehouse and transportation operations.
• can provide manufacturing information and support decision-making throughout the workflow.

Intelligent packaging use case

Uhlmann’s PacXplorer and 51风流highlighted a fully integrated, high-speed packaging line from 51风流S/4HANA, to 51风流Digital Manufacturing, down to Uhlmann鈥檚 automation layer to produce the packaged ginger shot. The ginger shots were moved away from the line by a mobile autonomous robot from Symovo. This use case showed visitors how 51风流supports regulated industries such as pharma and life sciences. 聽

Highlighted benefits include increased operational speed with higher throughput thanks to decreased order processing time, built-in regulatory compliance, reduced manual intervention, inventory transparency, and data integrity across the entire production chain.

Top AI functions

• Condition monitoring-led services can enhance asset uptime and service efficiency by combining AI-driven insights and seamless collaboration across the service ecosystem.
• AI-empowered flow analysis enables quick process modeling and engineering optimization.
• Intelligent exception handling is embedded in agent-driven processes.
• Joule’s integrated AI agents can support decision-making throughout the workflow.
• Joule can help power order and line insights.

Humanoid use case

At the final stop before getting their ginger shots, visitors watched an intelligent humanoid robot perform physical tasks at the end of the packaging line, bridging the gap between digital planning and physical execution, highlighting SAP鈥檚 Project Embodied AI.

Benefits of humanoids include increased operational speed with higher throughput due to a decreased order processing time; increased business uptime and cost efficiency especially in areas dangerous or difficult for humans; inventory transparency with real-time data integrity across the warehouse; and physical-digital alignment eliminating misalignment between planning and execution.

Top AI functions

• Joule and Joule Studio can enable robots to understand the physical world, make autonomous decisions, and learn from their environment for smarter operations.

More than a quick refuel

At the end of their visit, visitors got so much more than a quick refuel to slake their thirst. Following the creation of the ginger shot from recipe development and planning to production with mixing, filling, and packing, visitors came away with a clear understanding of how 51风流is connecting insight to execution with trusted orchestration and smarter execution. And, it is this trusted orchestration and smarter execution that is building the resilience every manufacturer needs in today鈥檚 world.

The announcement was made at HANNOVER MESSE 2026, where they showcased PacXplorer, a high-tech packaging machine from Uhlmann that serves as both an industrial demonstrator and a development platform.

PacXplorer: Connected Production in Industrial Practice

Developed through collaboration within Factory鈥慩, the PacXplorer brings together digital twins, condition monitoring, smart services and interoperable production solutions within a collaborative data ecosystem. Factory鈥慩 is a lighthouse project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy as part of the Manufacturing鈥慩 initiative. Its objective is to establish a decentralized data space for the capital goods industry, enabling secure and interoperable data exchange across companies and industries for equipment manufacturers and operators alike.

The machine is integrated into 51风流system landscapes and operated live. It demonstrates how industrial data can be used in a sovereign, interoperable and cross鈥慶ompany manner not as a theoretical model, but in real production operations. This creates transparency regarding asset condition, utilization and performance while laying the foundation for new data鈥慸riven services.

Service as a Key to Resilience

The value of this approach becomes particularly clear in service operations. Where production, data and operations are tightly interconnected, service plays a decisive role in ensuring asset availability, productivity and stable customer relationships. One often underestimated lever is spare parts service: delays lead directly to downtime and economic losses, especially in volatile market and supply situations. At the same time, these processes remain heavily manual in many industrial companies.

51风流and Uhlmann are deliberately advancing the further development of this area. An AI鈥憇upported process assists throughout the entire workflow from handling incoming inquiries and clarifying missing information to identifying the correct spare part and generating quotations. The approach integrates into existing 51风流service and sales processes and is closely aligned with real鈥憌orld business operations. The objective is fast, reliable and scalable customer service.

鈥淭oday, industry is less concerned with cost optimization than with decision鈥憁aking under uncertainty,鈥� says Dominik Metzger, President and Chief Product Officer, 51风流Supply Chain Management, 51风流SE. 鈥淲ith 51风流Business AI and integrated production and service solutions, we move decision鈥憁aking directly into business processes. This allows companies to identify risks early, respond with greater flexibility and remain operational even under unstable conditions.鈥�

Rethinking Value Creation Together

The collaboration between 51风流and Uhlmann illustrates a fundamental shift in industry: resilience is not achieved through additional buffers, but through better, faster and more-connected decisions across the entire value chain. Companies that manage their production and service processes in a data鈥慸riven way can respond more flexibly to change and secure their competitiveness over the long term.

Beyond HANNOVER MESSE, 51风流and Uhlmann will continue their innovation partnership. Following the event, the PacXplorer will be operated at the S.Factory in 51风流Experience Center Walldorf, serving as a platform for customers, partners and co鈥慽nnovation to continuously advancing industrial transformation.

Visit the . Get 51风流news via  and .

Media Contact:
Dana Roesiger, +49 6227 7 63900, dana.roesiger@sap.com, CET
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ.  Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP鈥檚 2025 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
漏 2026 51风流SE. All rights reserved.
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

Image copyright: 漏Uhlmann Group

AI alone is no longer a differentiator: What matters is where intelligence鈥痮perates鈥痠nside of a business. As demand volatility increases, fulfillment windows tighten, and customer expectations鈥痳ise,鈥痮rganizations need more than insights or task鈥痑ssistance. They need intelligence inside quotes, product content, service interactions, and campaigns, guiding decisions as they happen and continuously adapting as conditions change.

This shift lays the foundation for a new generation of executional AI, where capabilities evolve from supporting users to actively鈥痬onitoring鈥痜lows,鈥痑nticipating鈥痳isk, and over time acting as intelligent agents within core customer-facing processes.

With the Q1 2026 release of鈥� solutions, 51风流advances this shift by bringing AI closer to day-to-day customer-facing execution across sales, service, commerce, and engagement. Intelligence now operates closer to where outcomes are realized鈥攈elping organizations protect revenue, reduce friction, and deliver consistent, trusted experiences at scale.

Below, explore more of the highlights from the Q1 2026 release. And for full sub-solution details, see recaps for聽,听,听,听, and聽.

Optimize revenue streams with confidence

Revenue becomes more reliable when customer intent is captured early and executed consistently across sales and commerce workflows. The execution depends on speed and accuracy: accurate product information, relevant content, and seamless handoffs from inquiry to quote creation. When these are disconnected, teams face delays, manual rework, and missed revenue opportunities.

From customer inquiry to executable quote

• Email to quote with AI:鈥疉utomatically add SKUs from a deal using opportunity and email data with the Microsoft Outlook add-in for 51风流Sales Cloud. Users can choose to generate a quote, and the quote is quickly created in 51风流Sales Cloud in just a few clicks. After review, sellers can hit send; it is that easy.  
• Deep research: Accelerate account planning and reviews by synthesizing 51风流Sales Cloud and 51风流Service Cloud data with external market intelligence. For example, the deep research capability can deliver a detailed brief that can be used to better understand the account, their industry, and other crucial information like news and SWOT. Sellers will be able to engage prospects and buyers more effectively while customers will have more relevant and personalized information delivered.  
• Media attachments for product descriptions: Use AI to extract details from product documents, such as manuals, spec sheets, and PDFs, and automatically generate or enrich product descriptions in 51风流Commerce Cloud. This accelerates catalog updates and improves product data quality so that shoppers, search engines, and agentic commerce are rich with the most accurate product descriptions鈥攅nsuring product descriptions are detailed, differentiated, and discovered.

Delivering鈥痳别濒颈补产濒别鈥痵ervice at鈥痵肠补濒别

• Digital Service Agent handoff鈥痜or case creation: Connect every step of the service journey from conversational AI self-service to field resolution so service teams can resolve customer issues鈥痜aster and provide personalized service engagements that build trust.鈥疷sing conversational cues, Digital Service Agent鈥痵ummarizes intent identification for ticket creation while capturing essential information required for handoff to underlying solutions like 51风流Service Cloud.
• : Give service teams a single, real-time command center in 51风流Service Cloud, consolidating cases, tasks, and service orders into one view with visual workload insights so agents can prioritize faster, stay on top of commitments, and resolve more issues per day. 
• Retail Intelligence (51风流Early Adopter Care): Announced at NRF, Retail Intelligence provides one closed-loop, AI-enhanced retail supply chain planning environment that ties together planning, execution, and engagement. The result: human and agentic teams that don鈥檛 just execute tasks but reshape strategies, reimagine retail supply chain planning, and master autonomous growth and lasting differentiation.
  Learn more at the session.

Orchestrating engagement across the customer life cycle

Customer engagement spans browsing,鈥痯urchasing, fulfillment, and service across multiple channels. 51风流CX connects engagement directly to operational context.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

• delivers鈥痯ersonalized, AI-personalized communications and interactions across every channel powered by connected customer and operational data all fully integrated across SAP. Teams鈥痗an鈥痙eliver consistent, intelligent engagement that builds loyalty and drives鈥痓usiness鈥痠mpact.

• :鈥疎xtend conversational analytics to SMS campaigns. A new data context model narrows analysis to the right dataset, returning faster, more precise answers to natural language questions, such as 鈥淲hat was SMS revenue last month?鈥�

• :鈥疨redictively鈥痠dentify鈥痗ontacts鈥痺ho are鈥痩ikely in the next鈥�30 days to engage,鈥痓ecome inactive, or remain inactive,鈥痵o marketers can target outreach鈥痺here it will deliver the strongest results.鈥��&苍产蝉辫;

Accelerate transformation鈥痺颈迟丑鈥痶丑别鈥痑dvanced success plan鈥痜or 51风流CX

To鈥痑ssist鈥痗ustomers鈥痮n their鈥痶ransformation鈥痡ourneys, 51风流launched the new Advanced Success Plan in the鈥�. This will鈥痟elp customers increase the value of individual applications, accelerate cloud transformation across 51风流Business Suite,鈥痑nd enable consistent adoption of new innovations and 51风流Business AI.

With expanded coverage with additional 51风流CX solutions, including and , the advanced offering is comprised of three powerful elements:

• Success expert: Regular SAP expertise driving strategic customer outcomes
• Adoption guidance: Structured, AI-driven enablement accelerating adoption
• Activation and optimization services: Hands-on services to maximize performance and impact

Check out the鈥痺ebinar鈥痶o learn how the new service offering unlocks more of the transformative value of 51风流solutions:鈥�.

Intelligence where execution happens鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

With 51风流Customer Experience, AI moves beyond isolated鈥痑ssistance鈥痶o鈥痮perate鈥痙irectly within business execution flows. Intelligence is embedded where work happens鈥攊nside quotes, product content, service interactions, and campaigns鈥攈elping organizations respond in real time and deliver consistent customer outcomes at scale.

Learn more about 51风流CX in Q1鈥�2026鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Read the 51风流Help documentation to get started with these new capabilities.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Balaji Balasubramanian is president and chief product officer for 51风流Customer Experience and Consumer Industries.鈥�

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, our new user experience, is gaining momentum and driving significant impact for our customers. Customers are already efficiency, enhancing processes, improving , and .

Joule is now live across 35 solutions and will continue to meet our customers where they are: across the applications they use, with a firm understanding of their business context and data. That鈥檚 why in Q1 we are embedding Joule into more applications鈥攆rom 51风流Datasphere, where it can now execute tasks or explain specific functionalities, to 51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management, where users can use natural language to retrieve critical data and navigate to relevant applications.

Joule Agents, such as the Tender Analysis Agent, are boosting customer revenue growth by extracting critical requirements and flagging risks in complex documents. While project managers in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition are saving time setting up projects with the new Project Setup Agent. Plus, there are many more agents to discover below.

Agents are becoming a key new user鈥攁nd enabler鈥攐f enterprise software, joining humans as the only other non-deterministic operators while simultaneously expanding enterprise software鈥檚 scope and usefulness. Our agents will continue to deliver trustworthy, repeatable, and auditable results every time.

We now have over 30 specialized agents and more than 2,500 Joule Skills. The agent-to-agent protocol means our agents work across 51风流and non-51风流systems. As the number of agents grows across both, 51风流AI Agent Hub already today provides customers with the essential infrastructure and guardrails to manage, govern, and discover agents in this new ecosystem.

Some highlights from Q1 2026:

• 51风流Joule for Consultants is a conversational AI solution that provides expert guidance on cloud transformations, drawing on SAP鈥檚 knowledge base. To improve trust and traceability, citations are now displayed in a dedicated side panel and can be grouped for clarity. Administrators can enable web search, allowing Joule to draw from public content while maintaining clear source attribution. For tailored answers to problems where the system may not have customer-specific documentation, consultants can now upload up to 10 PDF or text files directly into the chat. This is further enhanced by the inclusion of content from the 51风流Enterprise Architecture Reference Library, which provides more complete and accurate answers to complex queries. Get started here.
• 51风流Business AI for supply chain minimizes disruptions and simplifies planning. The Project Setup Agent allows project managers to rapidly establish new projects by drawing on data from past initiatives. 51风流Integrated Business Planning users can now generate complex formulas in Microsoft Excel with natural language. 51风流Digital Manufacturing can distill complex manufacturing issues into clear descriptions. Joule is also helping 51风流Integrated Product Development users create problem reports and requirement models with simple, natural-language commands. Explore more below.
• 51风流Business AI for finance offers greater efficiency and insight across critical processes. Joule now translates complex e-invoicing errors into plain language. The Dispute Resolution Agent automates root-cause analysis for invoice disputes, while payment advice processing significantly reduces document processing time. Unstructured data, such as PDFs, can now be automatically transformed into sales orders, and accountants can access natural language explanations for complex fixed asset calculations. Users can personalize their home page and easily understand system errors using natural language across 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. Learn more below.
• 51风流Business AI for procurement and customer experience enhances the entire commercial journey with new capabilities. In procurement, automated statement of work (SOW) creation in 51风流Fieldglass reduces the time to define deliverables. The Catalog Optimization Agent means e-commerce managers can continuously improve product data quality. In retail, managers can get instant, conversational answers from Joule on order management data. There’s so much more to learn below.
• 51风流Business AI for IT and developers puts the latest tools and greater control directly into the hands of developers and data professionals. Joule is now generally available in 51风流Datasphere, enabling users to navigate the platform, get answers, and execute tasks using simple conversational language. The generative AI hub in AI Foundation continues to expand, offering developers access to the newest models, including OpenAI GPT 5.2, Gemini 3.0 Pro, Anthropic Claude Opus 4.6, and Claude Sonnet 4.6. Developers also gain greater power through enhancements such as advanced prompt optimization, metadata filtering, and declarative orchestration configurations in the prompt registry. Additionally, 51风流Document AI now offers more granular control with custom confidence thresholds and expanded document support. Dive into everything below.
• 51风流Business AI for industries delivers specialized intelligence to solve unique business challenges. Sales teams can accelerate their response process with the new Tender Analysis Agent, which automates the review of complex RFQ documents to improve win rates. Joule now works with 51风流Commodity Management to turn verbal or written negotiations directly into detailed draft deals. In life sciences, clinical supply professionals can use predictive analytics to reduce inventory waste costs, and Joule dramatically cuts information search time. 51风流Self-Billing Cockpit automates invoice data extraction from any format, significantly reducing manual processing time. Discover more for industries below.
• 51风流Business AI for business transformation management provides the critical insights needed to navigate and accelerate organizational change. Joule is now in 51风流Signavio, enabling natural-language searches that cut information discovery time. Business process model and notation simulations in 51风流Signavio provide clear, actionable summaries directly within process diagrams. Meanwhile, enterprise architects can leverage guidance in 51风流LeanIX to surface actionable insights directly from their architecture inventory, accelerating transformation execution and reducing the time to uncover them. Read more about transformation management below.

Joule

Joule, enhancements

User experience is improved by streamlining startup times and introducing cross-thread search functionality that lets end users find information across all conversation threads without manually checking individual histories. The document grounding capability has also seen a substantial upgrade, now supporting seamless integration with Google Drive.

To set up, see: , , and .

Furthermore, scalability has been greatly improved, as the system now supports up to 8,000 documents per pipeline, enabling large-scale data repositories to be processed and utilized efficiently.

For more information, see .

51风流Joule for Consultants, enhancements

Enhanced Citation Visibility
51风流Joule for Consultants has improved how citations are displayed for all identified sources returned by the product. Citations have been relocated to the right side in a dedicated panel for clearer visibility, and now also include public web search results when applicable (see below).

A new grouping feature has also been added, allowing citations to be grouped. This update provides users with a more transparent view of where information originates, strengthens trust, and improves traceability across all responses.

To see the sources and panel, click the sources button below each message; the panel will open on the right, showing all grouped sources.

Enable Web Search
Administrators can now enable/disable web search via the control panel for all assigned end users in 51风流Joule for Consultants.

When enabled, 51风流Joule for Consultants will consider public web content in its reasoning and cite relevant public sources in responses when they contribute to the answer. This enhancement gives organizations greater flexibility and transparency by enabling broader coverage of information while maintaining clear source citations for all sources used.

File Uploads in the Joule Message Input
End-users can now upload up to 10 files directly from the conversational message input box and reference them throughout the entire conversation.

Supported file types include PDF and TXT. Each file should be no more than 10 MB/600K characters; for PDFs, an approximation. A 100-page limit applies; if your file is larger, split it into multiple documents. Image files are currently not processed and will be ignored. We are working diligently to make this feature even more useful to end users. This enhancement enables richer, context-aware interactions by allowing you to incorporate your uploaded documents into its conversational responses throughout the session. Please be aware that the standard data privacy terms apply. See also the help documentation for additional information on the free user quota.

Content: 51风流Enterprise Architecture Reference Library
51风流Enterprise Architecture Reference Library data has been ingested and is now available for use in conversations. As more data is added, relevant portions may be included in 51风流Joule for Consultants鈥� responses, enabling more complete, accurate, and context-rich answers to user queries. Since 51风流Enterprise Architecture Reference Library content cannot be link-referenced, you won鈥檛 see the additional content listed under sources, even though it will be referenced.

Get started .

SECTION

51风流Business AI for supply chain

Project Setup Agent
Beta release

Project managers can now rapidly establish new projects by drawing on data from similar past initiatives. The agent bypasses complex interfaces and reduces reliance on the project management office (PMO) to facilitate the swift allocation of key resources needed to launch projects effectively. With a 10% reduction in project creation time, 16% faster resource allocation, and 30% less time spent reworking projects due to incorrect templates, teams can shift focus from operational coordination to improving project profitability and driving efficiency.

Get started .

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, AI-assisted retrieval of equipment information in service management
General availability

Service managers using the AI-assisted retrieval feature in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition gain a complete 360-degree view of customer equipment. The feature provides instant access to warranty information and a full history of service transactions, complemented by an AI summary and actionable recommendations. This allows service managers to more efficiently oversee service schedules, reduce potential downtime, and ensure customer equipment operates at peak performance.

Get started .

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted input recommendations for returns order creation
General availability

Returns clerks can accelerate the creation of customer returns with data field recommendations powered by historical data. This feature analyzes past return documents with similar process variants to automatically suggest the most common input values and return reasons, minimizing manual data entry and reducing errors. Organizations benefit from a one percent reduction in data management costs and a five percent decrease in business and operations analysis expenses, enabling returns teams to process orders more efficiently while maintaining accuracy.

Get started .

51风流Integrated Business Planning, AI-assisted MRO inventory analysis
General availability

Inventory planners get a new analytical assistant in the MRO inventory analysis feature for 51风流Integrated Business Planning. The feature accelerates root cause analysis by generating clear, natural-language summaries that explain the key drivers behind recommended safety stock and reorder points. By translating complex calculations into understandable insights, this capability enables planners to reduce time spent analyzing inventory runs by 30%, leading to faster adoption of outputs and ensuring that inventory parameters align with strategic business goals.

Get started .

51风流Integrated Business Planning, add-in for Microsoft Excel, AI-assisted planning
General availability

Supply chain planners can now simplify their work with a new AI-assisted planning add-in for Microsoft Excel. Instead of manually creating complex formulas or formatting rules, which often require technical expertise, they can simply describe their needs in natural language, and the system automatically generates the correct syntax. This intuitive way of interacting with the system removes technical barriers and improves a planner鈥檚 efficiency by 10%, freeing them to focus on strategic analysis rather than implementation details.

Get started .

51风流Integrated Business Planning, AI-assisted system security check
General availability

Supply chain planners and security analysts gain a robust way to assess system configurations against established security recommendations. The feature evaluates compliance states and provides clear guidance on required adjustments, helping administrators identify and address potential gaps while aligning configurations with 51风流best practices. Organizations can expect a 27% increase in compliance with hardening guidelines and a 32% reduction in the effort required to meet security recommendations. This feature strengthens the protection of sensitive data and reduces the risk of security breaches.

Get started .

51风流Integrated Product Development, AI-assisted problem report creation
General availability

Maintenance engineers can simplify the creation of formal problem reports by leveraging AI capabilities in 51风流Integrated Product Development. By describing an issue in their own words to Joule, it intelligently extracts key details like the problem name, tags, and priority, and then automatically generates a structured report. This streamlined process dramatically reduces manual data entry and ensures all reports are consistent and compliant with organizational standards, improving overall efficiency.

and get started .

51风流Integrated Product Development, AI-assisted requirements model creation
General availability

Requirements managers now have a more direct path to creating requirement models within 51风流Integrated Product Development by using natural language commands with Joule. This feature allows them to initiate new models, specify names, and apply templates in a single step, completely bypassing the need to navigate through complex folder structures. This streamlined approach provides a much faster starting point for new projects and empowers users to begin their work immediately without requiring deep knowledge of the repository layout.

Get started .

51风流Field Service Management, AI-assisted automated scheduling analytics
General availability

Field service dispatchers and consultants can now access clear, on-demand explanations of auto-scheduling results that demystify complex system logic. The new feature interprets scheduling reports and translates technical scoring details into business-friendly insights, explaining why specific technicians were assigned, why alternatives were passed over, and why certain activities remained unscheduled. This transparency drives a 12.5% increase in dispatcher productivity and a five percent reduction in erroneous resource allocations, strengthening trust in automated decisions while significantly reducing analysis time.

Get started .

51风流Digital Manufacturing, AI-assisted description enhancement
General availability

Quality managers documenting complex manufacturing issues can now generate clear, objective, and structured descriptions with minimal effort. 51风流Digital Manufacturing for issue resolution offers description generation that refines rough initial inputs, removes bias and subjective language, and produces balanced, factual problem statements. With support for multilingual translation and enhanced clarity, organizations can achieve up to five percent improvement in quality engineer efficiency during issue handling and up to 10% reduction in errors throughout the problem resolution process.

Get started .

51风流Business AI for finance

Dispute Resolution Agent (for 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition)
Beta release

When invoice disputes arise, accounts receivable specialists need to act quickly without sacrificing accuracy. 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition introduces an agent that automates root-cause analysis, scanning invoices, sales orders, delivery records, pricing agreements, and tax rules to identify the source of discrepancies. The agent detects incorrect charges and recommends compliant solutions, such as credit memo creation, enabling finance teams to resolve disputes faster, minimize manual investigation, and cultivate stronger vendor relationships through transparent, efficient processes.

Get started .

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted smart personalization of my home for applications
General availability

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition users can easily configure their home page with the most relevant applications through AI-assisted smart personalization. By describing their task in natural language, the system identifies the appropriate app, which can then be added to their home screen with a single click. This intuitive capability reduces the cost of personalizing the home page by 33%, shortens the learning curve for new users, and improves satisfaction by keeping frequently needed tools readily accessible.

Get started .

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted error explanation
General availability

When encountering system errors, 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition users can turn to a new feature that generates clear, natural language explanations and resolution recommendations. This capability transforms cryptic error messages into easy-to-understand guidance, helping users of all experience levels quickly rectify issues and continue with their work. By reducing error resolution time by five percent, organizations benefit from increased productivity, improved data quality, and shorter training cycles for new team members.

Get started .

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted sales order creation from unstructured data
General availability

Sales representatives benefit from a streamlined order creation process in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition that handles unstructured data like PDF or image-based purchase orders. After uploading a file, 51风流Document AI automatically extracts the relevant information and proposes the data for a corresponding sales order request. This automation significantly reduces manual data entry, minimizes errors, and improves overall operational efficiency, allowing teams to process orders faster and enhance customer satisfaction.

Get started .

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted processing of payment advices with 51风流Document AI
General availability

Accounts receivable clerks can accelerate their workflow using the 51风流Document AI-powered payment advice processing feature in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. The system automatically extracts payment amounts, references, and currencies from diverse invoice formats across multiple languages, with a self-learning capability that continuously improves recognition accuracy. Organizations implementing this feature can reduce document processing time by 70%, cut template maintenance time by 83%, and decrease value loss from manual processing delays by 40%.

Get started .

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, AI-assisted fixed asset key figures explanation
General availability

Asset accountants gain clarity on complex fixed asset calculations through a new AI feature in 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. The feature generates natural-language explanations that detail the origins of displayed values and how figures such as depreciation are calculated; for example, illustrating the impact of mid-year acquisitions with specific depreciation keys. This transparency reduces the effort required to analyze asset values, enables faster responses to asset-related questions, and helps mitigate compliance risks.

Get started .

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, AI-assisted settlement rule proposal for asset capitalization
General availability

Overhead and asset accountants can now streamline the complex process of creating settlement rules for investment measures, eliminating the traditionally time-consuming, error-prone manual configuration. The solution automatically determines receivers, calculates percentages, and proposes feasible rules based on contextual data and user-defined instruction profiles. Organizations reduce the effort required to create full settlement rules by 50% while simultaneously improving accuracy in asset capitalization and enhancing overall operational efficiency across their financial processes.

Get started .

51风流Document and Reporting Compliance for 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, AI-assisted electronic document error handling
General availability

Tax accountants navigating the growing complexity of e-invoicing mandates across multiple countries gain an easy way to decode technical errors without wading through intricate XML or JSON formats. Joule, integrated with 51风流Document and Reporting Compliance, delivers plain-language explanations of electronic document errors, enabling faster root-cause identification and more efficient resolution. Organizations get an 80% reduction in time spent understanding and resolving errors, dropping from 150 minutes to approximately 30 minutes. This results in faster processing cycles, reduced penalty risks, and improved cash flow.

Get started .

51风流S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted error resolution for cost accounting
General availability

Operations managers in retail organizations can now access Joule via 51风流Order Management Services, enabling them to query order data and receive real-time, role-specific operational guidance across order processing, orchestration, sourcing, availability, returns, and fulfillment flows. Joule surfaces instant insights and recommended actions directly in the workflow, reducing the need to navigate multiple systems. This enables proactive intervention before issues escalate. The feature offers faster transaction access, improved responsiveness and accuracy, and lower operational risk, which support smarter, quicker decisions across the order lifecycle.

Get started .

51风流Business AI for spend management

Expense Report Validation Agent
General availability

Business travelers can enjoy a smarter, guided approach to expense report completion with an agent that proactively identifies missing items, prompts for necessary details, and clarifies confusing alerts throughout the submission process. By simplifying how users understand and resolve issues, the agent ensures accurate, policy-compliant reports with minimal effort required. This means a 30% reduction in time spent preparing and submitting reports, a 24% increase in first-pass approvals, and a noticeably improved employee experience that removes friction from the expense management process.

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Expense Pre-Submit Audit Agent
51风流Early Adopter Care

Expense report submitters can now catch receipt accuracy issues and policy breaches before hitting the submit button, avoiding the frustration of rejected reports and delayed reimbursements. This agent automatically reviews expenses during creation, surfacing compliance problems and offering smart suggestions for quick corrections. The agent uses a non-blocking design that keeps users in control of final decisions. Organizations benefit from a 10% decrease in sent-back expense reports, reduced rework for travelers, managers, and auditors alike, and a noticeably smoother reimbursement process that enhances the overall employee experience.

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Expense Automation Agent
51风流Early Adopter Care

Employees burdened by the administrative chore of creating expense reports can now delegate the heavy lifting to a Joule Agent. This agent automatically builds expense reports by aggregating transactions, populating custom fields based on contextual details and user history, and preparing everything for a quick review before submission. The outcome is up to 30%鈥� reduction in time on task for auto-generated expense reports. This offers a modern expense management experience that slashes manual data entry, accelerates the submission process, and frees employees to focus on high-value work rather than paperwork.

See the demo .

Concur Expense, AI-assisted configuration for audit rules
General availability

Expense administrators responsible for managing complex audit rule setups can now interact with their configuration environment in plain language, eliminating the need for deep technical expertise or tedious manual adjustments. This AI-assisted feature enables admins to search existing rules, create new ones, and receive real-time explanations simply by asking questions like “What rules apply to meals in France?”, delivering clear, actionable guidance instantly. The outcome is a 40% reduction in audit rule configuration effort, fewer support tickets, and empowered administrators who work with greater independence, accuracy, and confidence in maintaining compliance logic.

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Policy Navigator
51风流Early Adopter Care

Business travelers seeking quick answers to company travel and expense policies no longer need to sift through lengthy documents or wait for admin responses. Policy navigator in Joule allows employees to ask questions in natural language and receive clear, contextual guidance grounded in approved policies, whether planning a trip, in the middle of a journey, or completing an expense report. The result is in-the-moment policy clarity that prevents non-compliant spend before it happens, reduces support tickets, and empowers travelers to make confident, compliant decisions without disrupting their workflow.

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51风流Business AI for procurement

51风流Fieldglass Services Procurement, AI-assisted SOW deliverables creation
General availability

Procurement specialists can accelerate the development of their statements of work using the deliverables feature in 51风流Fieldglass Services Procurement. The feature analyzes the defined project scope and automatically generates precise, relevant deliverables that ensure tight alignment between buyer expectations and supplier commitments. By adopting this capability, organizations can reduce the time required to manually create SOW deliverables by 70% and cut the risk of poor outcomes by 50%, while fostering stronger collaboration during the negotiation process.

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51风流Business AI for customer experience

Catalog Optimization Agent
General availability

E-commerce product managers tasked with maintaining large 51风流Commerce Cloud catalogs gain an always-on agent that continuously reviews product descriptions, attributes, and translations against company quality standards. This agent pinpoints merchandising gaps and delivers actionable recommendations to enhance catalog accuracy, ensure consistency across languages, and improve product discoverability. The business impact is a 70% reduction in time to translate catalog data, 65% less time spent adding descriptions per asset, and a five percent reduction in data quality costs, all of which contribute to higher conversion rates and a more agile merchandising operation.

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51风流Revenue Growth Management, AI-assisted trade promotion creation
General availability

Key account managers in consumer industries can benefit from a streamlined, single-view promotion-creation experience in which simply naming a promotion automatically populates key fields. Drawing on master data, historical promotions, and learned preferences specific to each retailer, the system suggests dates, types, durations, and sell-in periods, then continuously refines its recommendations based on user edits over time. The impact is a 75% reduction in promotion setup time, 30% fewer data-entry errors and rework, and increasingly personalized suggestions that eliminate repetitive manual effort across promotion cycles.

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51风流Business AI for IT and developers

Joule Studio code editor and Joule Studio CLI

Building on the transformative capabilities of Joule studio low-code, 51风流is expanding the Joule studio family with two powerful new offerings designed to meet developers exactly where they work: Joule Studio code editor, a Visual Studio Code IDE extension, and Joule Studio CLI, a versatile command-line interface. Together, these tools deliver a unified, AI-assisted development experience that spans the full spectrum of development personas and preferences on Joule.

• Joule Studio code editor brings the intelligence of Joule directly into Visual Studio Code, the world’s most popular development environment, empowering pro-code developers with AI-guided scaffolding, contextual code generation, intelligent recommendations, and seamless integration with Joule, all without leaving their preferred IDE. 
• Joule Studio CLI extends this same power to the terminal, enabling developers and DevOps teams to automate project creation, manage configurations, execute deployments, and orchestrate CI/CD workflows through scriptable, command-line commands鈥攊deal for headless environments, automation pipelines, and teams that value speed and precision at the command line.

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Joule with 51风流Datasphere
General availability

Data professionals working within 51风流Datasphere can now accomplish informational, navigational, and transactional tasks through natural conversation with Joule. Whether asking how to use specific functionalities, retrieving details about a 51风流Datasphere instance, or switching system settings like language preferences, users receive instant answers with direct references to product documentation. Joule can even execute tasks directly from the conversation without requiring interaction with the standard interface. This direct execution reduces reliance on internal IT support and enables faster, more intuitive navigation throughout the platform.

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51风流Document AI, enhancements

Document level confidence
Customers now set confidence ranges for fields in the Schemas feature. When customers edit field settings, they can define their own thresholds for low, medium, and high confidence. These custom settings are reflected in the extraction results displayed for the relevant fields on the document details screen. See and .

Expanded Transportation Management
Customers can now use the Transports feature to export and import channels and workflows. See .

New schemas: business partner + delivery note for WM
The service plans embedded edition and premium edition now also support the standard document type, business partner document. See the list of supported document types in . Get started with 51风流Document AI, and .

Generative AI Hub in AI Foundation, enhancements

Metadata
Customers can now manage metadata for documents, collections, and chunks created with the Vector API to enable advanced filtering and organization of their content. For more information, see .

Retrieval API
Customers can merge and rank search results across multiple data repositories using the Retrieval API’s post-processing capabilities. For more information, see .

Prompt optimizations
Custom metrics are supported in prompt optimizations, enabling customers to define and optimize prompts based on their specific evaluation criteria. Only LLM-as-a-judge metrics with numerical or Boolean output types can be used in optimization tasks.For more information, see and . Customers can provide separate test and train datasets for prompt optimization. For more information, see .

Prompt registry
The prompt registry now enables customers to create and manage orchestration configurations declaratively, allowing them to version and track complex AI workflows alongside their prompts for better governance and reproducibility.For more information, see .

Secrets
Customers can now enter generic secrets using a form instead of JSON. The form appears in the Add Generic Secret dialog when you activate document grounding. A dropdown menu lets them choose the type of document repository. Depending on their selection, the remaining fields adjust dynamically, allowing them to complete the data. Some fields are already prefilled.If they prefer working directly with JSON, switch to the code view by clicking the 顒� icon. For more information, see .

New models available
New models are supported, including OpenAI GPT 5.2, Gemini 3.0 Pro, Perplexity Deep Research, and Anthropic Claude Opus 4.6.For more information on new and deprecated models, .

51风流Joule for Developers, ABAP AI capabilities, enhancements

New ABAP AI capabilities mean developers can expect a 20% reduction in time and effort to write ABAP/JAVA code, 25% reduction in time and effort to test ABAP/JAVA code, and 4.4% faster time to realized value.

This quarter, developers can now easily generate ABAP Unit tests for:

• Public, protected, and private methods of global ABAP classes
• Public methods of local classes within global class pools

See .

In addition, the documentation chat allows developers to interact with documentation on the 51风流Help Portal, providing context-aware answers and links to relevant documentation. This capability enhances productivity by offering quick access to related documentation directly within the development environment. See .

Finally, developers can now get AI-powered explanations of their ATC findings and code in the Custom Code Analysis/Custom Code Migration app. See and .

Get started .

51风流Business AI for industries

Tender Analysis Agent
General availability

Sales teams can elevate their tender response process with the Tender Analysis Agent, which automates the review of complex RFQ documents. The agent extracts critical product requirements, flags potential risks and policy gaps, and suggests optimized configurations tailored to customer needs. By reducing the effort to process incoming tenders by five percent and improving win rates, organizations can achieve measurable revenue growth while accelerating sales cycles and uncovering valuable cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

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51风流Commodity Management, AI-assisted commodity work center
General availability

Commodity traders can transform how they capture and manage complex deals using the commodity work center in 51风流Commodity Management. Working alongside Joule, the feature converts verbal or written negotiations into detailed draft deals, automatically populating the numerous fields that traditionally require extensive manual entry. This enables traders to redirect their focus toward negotiating better commercial outcomes, while improving data accuracy and driving greater operational efficiency across their trading activities.

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51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management, AI-assisted predictive subject dynamics
General availability

Clinical trial coordinators seeking to boost their supply planning capabilities will find a powerful ally in 51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management. The predictive subject dynamics feature analyzes historical and real-time data to forecast patient enrollment trends and dropout rates, automatically generating insights that would otherwise require extensive manual analysis. This enables supply chain teams to redirect their focus to strategic decision-making, while reducing clinical inventory waste costs by up to two percent and improving demand forecasting accuracy across their trial operations.

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Joule with 51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management
General availability

Clinical supply professionals juggling multiple tasks and complex systems need quick access to information without disrupting their workflow. Together with Joule, 51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management delivers an intuitive, conversational interface that understands natural-language requests, enabling users to retrieve critical data and navigate to relevant applications effortlessly. This streamlined experience results in an 83% reduction in time spent on information searches, freeing teams to concentrate on higher-value activities and significantly boosting overall productivity.

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51风流Self-Billing Cockpit, AI-assisted document processing
General availability

Billing clerks managing self-billing workflows frequently encounter invoices arriving in a mix of formats鈥擡xcel, PDF, CSV, or text files鈥攐ften unstructured and spanning multiple languages. 51风流Self-Billing Cockpit addresses this challenge by leveraging intelligent document processing to parse and extract invoice data from virtually any format, converting it into structured payloads ready for automated billing. The result is significantly reduced time spent processing invoice line items, fewer customer-specific interfaces for integration specialists to build and maintain, and improved extraction accuracy through minimized manual intervention.

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51风流Business AI for business transformation management

Joule with 51风流Signavio solutions
General availability

Process analysts and optimization specialists working across complex organizational workflows require rapid access to diagrams, documentation, and performance metrics. 51风流Signavio solutions integrate with Joule to enable natural-language keyword searches across process diagrams, dictionary items, and help resources. At the same time, best-practice KPI recommenders guide users to the most relevant success measures. This intuitive approach delivers 50% faster information searches and navigation, ensuring teams make data-driven decisions with improved search quality and an enhanced overall user experience.

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51风流Signavio solutions, AI-assisted business process model and notation simulation insights
General availability

Process analysts leveraging 51风流Signavio can now access embedded business process model and notation simulations directly within their process diagrams, eliminating the need for fragmented tools and manual interpretation. Key metrics such as costs, cycle times, and resource utilization are automatically translated into clear, actionable summaries that highlight bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement. This streamlined approach reduces time to access process modeling insights by 50%, empowering teams to compare scenarios effortlessly and communicate findings to stakeholders with greater confidence and clarity.

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51风流LeanIX solutions, AI-assisted architecture guidance
General availability

Enterprise architects seeking to accelerate transformation initiatives can leverage 51风流LeanIX to surface actionable insights directly from their architecture inventory. The feature analyzes enterprise architecture data to identify opportunities and guides users through the workflows and tasks needed to efficiently act on recommendations. Organizations benefit from a 95% reduction in time to discover insights, 80% faster transformation execution, and a five percent reduction in value erosion from delayed action. Overall, this feature drives greater architectural productivity and more agile decision-making.

Get started .

Jonathan von Rueden is chief AI officer of 51风流SE.

*Disclaimer: This article provides estimated benefits. All calculations are estimates based on 51风流customer case studies, 51风流benchmarks, and other research. Actual benefits may vary and may be affected by additional factors not considered by this article. The information is provided 鈥渁s is鈥� without warranty of any kind, expressor implied, and in no event shall 51风流be liable for any damages whatsoever in relation with the use of this article. See Legal Notice on for use terms, disclaimers, disclosures, or restrictions related to this material.

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Team Liquid, the world鈥檚 largest esports organization, is turning to Joule to transform how it manages the vast amounts of data generated in competitive gaming.

Keeping FC Bayern at the top is no mean feat, and the action on the pitch is supported by a global administrative team of over 1,200, in addition to the thousands of operational staff who work to deliver a seamless experience to the fans who fill the Allianz Arena for each home match. The focus on match-day operations encompasses everything from security to ticketing to retail, as well as managing one of the largest parking garages in Europe, which accommodates up to 12,000 cars that must enter and exit within a few hours.

FC Bayern’s match-day operations generate a staggering volume of data, but capturing and making sense of every fan interaction鈥攂oth in the stadium and among the hundreds of millions tuning in worldwide鈥攚as becoming a herculean undertaking. Fan data was siloed in more than 50 legacy systems, creating a fragmented information landscape that hindered FC Bayern’s ability to understand and serve its legions of fans.

Thankfully, a club that has been in the business of winning for over a century is no stranger to innovation.

Game plan: data

, head of Development and Process for FC Bayern Munich, captured the club’s challenge in a nutshell: “Everything needs data.” Everyone from the firefighters and police who supported match days to the IT teams and retail staff “needed data, and everyone needed the same perspective on the data,” Winter explained.

But the club’s data was sprawled across dozens of siloed systems, each tied to different vendors and service providers. And when it came time to make crucial match-day decisions, team members had to rely on analog, piecemeal methods of sharing information鈥攐ften through SMS and radio. As a result, no one ever had the same information at the same time.

FC Bayern needed to harness its vast amount of information with a single, integrated system that provided a unified, 360-degree view.

From silos to a streamlined system

The storied sports club has enjoyed a partnership with 51风流dating back more than a quarter of a century. Therefore, (51风流BTP) was a natural fit for the next step in the club鈥檚 digital journey. The platform includes to help capture and combine data from disparate sources and systems, including both 51风流and non-51风流systems. This newly integrated data landscape provides a single source of truth across the organization, enabling real-time data analytics that not only streamline match-day operations and optimize the fan experience on-site but also provide invaluable insights to fuel long-term strategic planning.

For example, Winter explained, the club now has access to an up-to-the-minute, “high-level” overview of FC Bayern fans鈥�”how they behave, what they鈥檙e interested in, how old they are, whether they buy jerseys, whether they only go to soccer matches, whether they are already interested in basketball,” and more鈥攖hat has facilitated a much deeper understanding of fans, not only on the individual level but also across the entire fan base.

Forecasting the future

With a solid, integrated data foundation established, FC Bayern is looking ahead and will be adding AI to its technology line-up to maximize the value of its data across the organization, from amplifying process efficiency to developing robust, data-informed predictive capabilities.

For organizations looking to undertake their own digital transformations, Winter advised to not put the cart before the horse: “To use AI, you need to have good data.” And while Winter cautioned that every organization’s process is unique, he recommended listening as a good first step for everyone: “Talk to your users. What are their problems? What do they need to know? What processes are they trying to optimize?”

While the journey is not always easy, FC Bayern knows that winning is always worth the effort.

For the full FC Bayern Munich episode and the on-demand Better Together: Customer Conversations series, visit 

Timo Elliott is the vice president and global innovation advocate for 51风流BTP at SAP. 

Top photo courtesy of FC Bayern M眉nchen AG

We believe this recognition reflects our continued investment in a modern, scalable AI-ready integration platform that meets the needs of organizations operating across increasingly complex hybrid and multicloud landscapes.

Why orgnizations continue to choose 51风流Integration Suite

Part of 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP), 51风流Integration Suite brings together API management, event鈥慸riven architecture, process integration, and AI鈥慳ssisted development in one unified offering. It gives customers a reliable way to connect distributed systems, orchestrate workflows, and operate securely across hybrid and multi-cloud environments鈥攚hether those landscapes run primarily on 51风流solutions or a mix of third鈥憄arty applications.

By using metadata, events, and APIs as its backbone, the suite provides an integration foundation that supports AI agents and increasingly autonomous enterprise processes. Organizations in manufacturing, logistics, retail, and other highly regulated industries rely on this foundation to maintain performance and stay compliant at global scale.

Innovation that scales with your business

Over the past year, 51风流expanded its AI鈥慳ssisted capabilities to help customers move faster and operate with security and reliability. New AI-assisted features include anomaly detection, script optimization, traffic prediction, and integration鈥慺low generation. Combined with more than 4,000 prebuilt integration flows and over 250 connectors, organizations can accelerate design and reduce manual effort.

51风流Integration Suite now runs in more than 40 data centers worldwide, giving customers flexibility for in鈥憆egion processing and data鈥憇overeignty requirements. These enhancements help teams detect issues earlier, optimize performance, and shorten time鈥憈o鈥憊alue across complex hybrid landscapes.

Accelerating agentic AI adoption

骋别产谤.听贬别颈苍别尘补苍苍 modernized its global retail checkout platform with 51风流Integration Suite and advanced event mesh, enabling the company to process 300,000 price鈥慶hange events in 30 minutes without system degradation.

“Advanced event mesh has completely changed the way integration and process orchestration run. Everything works better.”

Benedikt Althaus, team lead, Integration Services and Platform Solutions, Gebr. Heinemann SE & Co. KG.

Shimano Europe benefits from the efficient, scalable, and future鈥憄roof integration foundation of 51风流Integration Suite to accelerate its go鈥憈o鈥憁arket process. By streamlining integrations across systems, the company improves operational efficiency and enhances the overall customer experience through a more agile and reliable integration landscape.

“To accelerate the go-to-market process, we provided an effective and efficient integration platform with 51风流Integration Suite, a future-proof and scalable solution that improves our customers鈥� experiences.”

Fernanda Ribeiro, IT application architect, Shimano Europe

Siemens AG relies on 51风流Integration Suite to harmonize global reporting processes and ensure compliance with evolving regulatory requirements. By standardizing integrations across regions and supporting diverse country鈥憇pecific tax protocols, 51风流Integration Suite helps Siemens streamline compliance operations and maintain consistent reporting quality worldwide. This foundation strengthens Siemens鈥� ability to adapt to changing regulatory environments with greater confidence and efficiency.

“Managing international tax requirements is much easier. It will be implemented around the globe.”

Andrea Spandau, head of Digital Tax Ecosystem, Siemens AG

Looking ahead

We believe this year鈥檚 recognition underscores our commitment to advancing 51风流Integration Suite with deeper AI capabilities, more reusable business content, broader industry coverage, third-party adapters, and an improved developer experience. Our goal is to help customers automate more of their operations, innovate with confidence, and scale as their businesses evolve.

Learn more

Sid Misra is chief marketing officer for 51风流Business Technology Platform.

Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner鈥檚 business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Gartner and Magic Quadrant are trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.

With a diverse portfolio of brands鈥擪ito, Crosby, Harrington, Gunnebo Industries, Peerless, and eepos鈥攖he company has experienced rapid growth, scaling its business from millions to billions in revenue. But the number of acquisitions left the company with a fragmented IT landscape of outdated, unsupported, and unscalable systems.

To establish a unified digital core and standardize processes, Kito Crosby embarked on a journey, implementing 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition to achieve its long-term single global instance strategy.

A winning strategy

Kito Crosby chose a greenfield, clean core strategy to eliminate the existing fragmentation and enable long-term scalability, Johnson Lai, Chief Digital Transformation Officer and Chief Information Officer, . 鈥淚n the past, we did not integrate our ERP systems, and this left our IT landscape very fragmented and limited our business process capabilities,鈥� he said. 鈥淭herefore, we wanted to refresh all of our ERP systems and really lay down a greenfield start that we can begin to create a transformational change for the entire company.鈥�

Selecting a greenfield and clean core approach鈥攂asically standing up an entirely new system that prioritizes standard functionalities over customizations鈥攚as key to remedying Kito Crosby鈥檚 current technology landscape, so that processes like order to cash, accounting, manufacturing, and shipping could be integrated. This approach also allowed the company to take a close look at core processes and streamline operations, especially in warehouse management and S&OP, Lai said.

Considering the project scope, Kito Crosby did not have the internal talent needed to stand up the servers and infrastructure, so it decided to move forward with RISE with 51风流and . 鈥�51风流comes with a lot of great stuff, and we wanted to take advantage of that,鈥� Lai said.

The company began the transformation in North America, as that is its largest market and therefore posed the greatest risk in operating on a legacy, unsupported ERP system.

Never underestimate change management

While Lai shared that employees were motivated and excited to get started initially, the enormity of the project quickly became overwhelming.

Ironically, many wanted to customize the new 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition solution to act like the legacy tech. 鈥淓veryone agrees to the clean core approach until it鈥檚 their turn to look at their function, at which point they want customization. There was a piece of resistance to using 鈥榲anilla鈥� functionality,鈥� Lai said. 鈥淥nce we showed people live demos with their own data, that鈥檚 when the change resistance started to decrease,鈥� he added.

In IT specifically, there was a strong desire to build and run their own infrastructure and servers rather than have another company step in. A sense of ownership and accountability is important, Lai said, but ultimately Kito Crosby鈥檚 need to get off the legacy system in North America quickly made it necessary to partner with SAP. And it was the right move: 鈥淣ow some of the folks who questioned why we outsourced some of that to 51风流are our biggest champions鈥e find working with the 51风流team is no different than working with ourselves.鈥�

For companies with digital transformation projects on the horizon, Lai cautions to 鈥渘ever underestimate the change impact that employees face.鈥� Projects of a global scale require planning on all fronts, including allocating time for employees and business leaders to get on board.

Lessons learned and benefits gained

The ERP system revamp delivered measurable business value to Kito Crosby, including improved customer service, stronger inventory control, and more efficient manufacturing and warehouse operations. Notably, the business process improvements and enhanced system functionality drove Kito Crosby鈥檚 on-time delivery to its highest levels in more than 10 years.

鈥淲e see that benefit across the globe and we鈥檙e excited about taking what we鈥檝e done in North America throughout the entire world, consolidating all those little ERPs that are outdated and unsupported into 51风流to get to that single global instance,鈥� Lai said. Since going live on 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and fully embracing its native capabilities, Kito Crosby has unlocked measurable business value and operational excellence. The transformation has driven strong performance gains across critical KPIs, including higher customer on鈥憈ime delivery, meaningful reductions in back orders, improved inventory accuracy, and accelerated intercompany processing.

At the same time, warehouse operations are setting new benchmarks for efficiency, achieving record volumes for receiving and put鈥慳way, replenishment, and shipping. These results have been delivered safely, with zero injuries and fewer resources.

To the cloud鈥攁nd beyond

Following its recent acquisition by leading worldwide designer, manufacturer, and marketer of intelligent motion solutions , Kito Crosby is continuing to build on its strong digital foundation.

鈥淏ecause we started with a greenfield and kept a clean core as much as possible, we feel like the upgrades will go even faster and with less effort,鈥� Lai said. 鈥淲e want to get to the latest [51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition] version so we can take advantage of the AI capabilities of .鈥�

Next on the ERP systems consolidation docket: the 51风流ERP Central Component (51风流ECC) 6.0 system in Europe.

鈥淭his is just one example of how our IT team is empowering the broader organization to further delight our customers and end user,鈥� Lai . 鈥淎s we continue to scale our business, we expect even greater returns as we further capitalize on the technology, expanded capabilities, and AI tools within our 51风流landscape.鈥�

Gillian Hixson is an integrated communications specialist at SAP.

From energy sharing and dynamic pricing to cloud-native and interoperable flexibility markets, the solution can connect meters, markets, and customers to enable business models such as energy communities, virtual power plants, and demand response. Combined with a curated ecosystem of specialist technology partners, 51风流empowers utilities to own their energy transition.聽

The energy transition runs on data, but data is getting harder to manage 

The energy transition is reshaping the power landscape. Utilities are evolving from centralized generation toward systems powered by millions of distributed energy resources: solar panels, EV chargers, heat pumps, and batteries owned by consumers and聽prosumers聽alike. The number of connected assets is growing rapidly, generating vast amounts of operational, commercial, and customer data. Managing this聽data reliably and consistently is one of the defining challenges of the next energy decade.聽

At the same time, digital energy platforms and new market entrants are intermediating the customer relationship, offering integrated propositions that bundle connectivity, flexibility, and billing into a single stack. Utilities that do not act risk being reduced to commodity providers.

To unlock the value of distributed energy resources, utilities need more than connectivity. They need聽data orchestration:聽a trusted, intelligent foundation that harmonizes聽information across every process, partner, and device and ensures they聽own rather than rent聽their energy transition capabilities.聽

From distributed assets to orchestrated intelligence 

罢丑别听51风流Distributed Energy Resources聽solution is designed to聽meet exactly聽this challenge. Built on 51风流BTP, it enables utilities to manage distributed energy resources-related data at scale across production, consumption, and storage while helping to ensure reliability, performance, and consistency.聽

Rather than acting as an operational control system, 51风流DER focuses on data orchestration and integration. It helps ensure that distributed energy resources data can flow seamlessly between operational, commercial, and analytical systems, providing a single source of truth that can connect the physical and digital worlds of energy. 

鈥淭he complexity our customers face with prosumer data is exponential. They need reliability, performance, and consistency across all their data sources, and that鈥檚 exactly where 51风流Distributed Energy Resources comes in.鈥� 

Kim Maren Ekrutt, Global Industry Business Unit Utilities Co鈥慔ead, SAP 

Two pillars of the 51风流DER solution 

1. Complex installation and prosumer data orchestration: technical and commercial foundation

Manage the full spectrum of prosumer-related data, covering both complex technical installation details, such as meters, solar panels, batteries, EV chargers, and heat pumps, and the commercial information required to operate distributed energy resources at scale. This includes customer and prosumer master data, product structures, tariffs, contracts, grid connection agreements, feed-in contracts, and all commercial relationships linked to each installation. 

By bringing together technical asset data with commercial attributes and agreement information, the solution can provide a unified and reliable model of every installation. This is essential because distributed energy resources cannot be managed with technical information alone. Commercial products, grid contracts, flexible tariffs, and incentive agreements determine how energy flows are measured, settled, billed, shared, or monetized. 

This pillar becomes the foundation for energy communities, virtual power plant participation, flexibility programs, dynamic pricing, capacity and congestion management, and any business model involving prosumers and distributed energy assets. 

2. Energy management and sharing 

Track and analyze聽how energy is consumed, produced, stored, and shared, enabling new energy community and peer-to-peer聽business models. With high-resolution energy data and intelligent allocation algorithms, utilities can offer transparent, fair, and regulation-compliant energy sharing services to residential and commercial participants alike.聽

Connecting data, processes, and people 

Utilities already rely on 51风流for mission-critical processes such as meter to cash, asset management, and customer experience. 51风流DER can extend this foundation, linking every asset, agreement, and customer interaction within one coherent data model. This integrated approach helps turn technical data into business value, powering use cases such as smart tariffs, dynamic pricing, and energy sharing. For utilities, this means a single enterprise backbone that can connect the traditional meter-to-cash world with the emerging flexibility and distributed energy resources economy. 

A partner ecosystem for the energy flexibility market 

No single vendor can address the full breadth of the distributed energy landscape. 51风流has assembled a curated ecosystem of specialist technology partners, each bringing deep domain expertise that complements SAP鈥檚 enterprise data platform. Data stays with the utility, business logic聽remains聽under their control, and the customer relationship belongs to them.聽

SAP鈥檚 technology partners extend the platform across six critical domains: 

• Flexibility management and virtual power plants:聽Orchestrate and monetize聽prosumer聽assets, including EVs, batteries, heat pumps, and solar inverters, for flexibility markets and smart charging services.聽
• Energy communities and energy sharing:聽Design and聽operate聽energy communities with transparent allocation, dynamic local pricing, and full regulatory compliance.聽
• Grid congestion and capacity management:聽Forecast, detect, and resolve grid congestion at the low-voltage-network-level while unlocking flexibility revenues.聽
• Energy portfolio management and trading:聽Access wholesale and flexibility markets with聽real-time聽pricing, dynamic quotations, and risk management.聽
• Customer insights and energy disaggregation:聽Deliver behind-the-meter visibility through non-intrusive load monitoring and appliance-level analytics.聽
• Demand response and load management:聽Design and execute demand response programs, combining customer incentives, dynamic pricing, and automated device control.聽

鈥淥ur role is to help utilities master the growing data complexity and turn it into opportunity. With 51风流Distributed Energy Resources and our partner ecosystem, we鈥檙e connecting data, processes, and partners into one intelligent platform that enables utilities to own their energy transition.鈥� 

Kim Maren Ekrutt, Global VP & Co-Head Industry Business Unit Utilities

About 51风流Distributed Energy Resources 

51风流Distributed Energy Resources provides utilities with a public cloud platform to help model, manage, and share distributed energy resources data across operational and commercial domains. Integrated with SAP鈥檚 core utilities portfolio and a curated global partner ecosystem, it can enable reliable data exchange, smart energy management, and customer-centric innovation for the distributed energy era.聽

Mateu Munar is senior director of Industry Business Unit Utilities at SAP.

Founded in 1917, the is comprised of 32 Clubs located across North America. It serves a global fan base of nearly 700 million annual spectators across in-arena, broadcast, and digital channels. With millions of fans worldwide watching and Clubs fighting for any edge they can find, the NHL needed a future-focused way to manage critical decisions shaping the game.

To develop, maintain, and grow a roster within the salary cap system’s guidelines is no small undertaking, especially given the numerous variables that change in real time. While instituting the salary cap helps maintain evenly balanced teams that deliver thrilling games, it also contributes to a complex front-office balancing act, where every potential trade or player acquisition poses a mind-numbing array of opportunities and complications, short and long term.

Across the League, Clubs develop their own roster-management approaches, each using different tools and resources. No matter the variations among the solutions, they were mainly labor-intensive, disconnected systems, which meant that teams did not necessarily have access to real-time data, let alone reliable data, or an efficient means to access and analyze the data they did have.

The NHL, however, had a vision鈥攁 unified system that would consolidate player and League data into one platform accessible to all Clubs.

The SAP-NHL Front Office App for iPad delivers on that vision by providing a centralized view of the League, down to the team level, and drilling further into player data, enabling front offices to make more informed, real-time decisions with greater accuracy and efficiency.

First steps: consolidation and collaboration

Before the League could make that vision a reality, several obstacles needed to be resolved, starting with what , VP of Digital Business Development at the NHL, described as the League鈥檚 primary pain point: disconnected, legacy data management systems. Pascal Bornet, AI and automation expert, applauded this approach, advising organizations to 鈥渟tart with the friction points.鈥�

Phase one, Foster explained, was 鈥渞eally updating our backend,鈥� consolidating all the League鈥檚 data, from contract to salary information, and combining it with player statistics and video clips on 51风流HANA Cloud.

Armed with a new database that would provide a seamless, fully connected single source of information for every NHL Club, the League was ready for its next challenge: creating a digital front-office solution that would meet the needs of 32 entirely different front offices, each with their own systems, priorities, 鈥渦se cases, day-to-day responsibilities, and current challenges with data or workflows,鈥� Foster explained.

The key to developing the League鈥檚 new application, Foster said, was leveraging 鈥渄esign-thinking principles鈥� and 鈥渁uthentic user feedback鈥� to create a single solution that would offer real added value to each user, from GMs to analysts to administrators, on each NHL team.

A power play digital solution

That disciplined, user-centered approach, combined with the NHL鈥檚 diligent attention to data consolidation, enabled the League to launch its SAP-NHL Front Office App for iPad in record time. While not mandatory, the app quickly proved its value and was rapidly adopted by all 32 Clubs. 

The app has already transformed day-to-day operations for Clubs, thanks to its ability to seamlessly access and interpret a single, reliable, and interconnected source of information on three different levels. The broadest level, the league view, offers data across the entire NHL, including current and projected salary caps for each club, off-season scenarios, and draft pick conditions; the team view breaks down the contracts of each player on the roster and provides visual cues for free agents or injured players; and the player view displays bios, contract PDFs, no-trade clauses, waiver status, performance bonuses, and even video clips of game highlights for every player in the League.

As Bornet said, 鈥淚t鈥檚 about the right data, instantly and everywhere.鈥� By rethinking the process first and prioritizing user needs, the League created a foundation for change鈥攐ne that keeps 鈥渉umans firmly in command鈥� and uses technology to 鈥渁mplify judgment, not replace it,鈥� Bornet added.

Foster attributed the new app鈥檚 resounding success to the processing power of (51风流BTP), which enables club-specific customizations and allows for real-time calculations to fuel mission-critical decision-making.

Playing the long game

The NHL and 51风流have a long-standing technology partnership that has powered several League-wide innovations, including NHL.com/Stats, the SAP-NHL Coaching Insights App, and NHL Venue Metrics. The Front Office App builds on this foundation and represents the next phase of the League鈥檚 digital transformation.

While the Front Office App is currently helping each NHL Club shape its team’s future, the League is continuing to look ahead. 鈥淭his is a project with a multi-year road map,鈥� Foster said.

As the NHL continues its innovation journey, it will remain laser-focused on user experience. Foster advised those looking to undertake their own digital transformation to take a page from the NHL鈥檚 playbook: 鈥淟et go of preconceived notions and realign your priorities according to user feedback. Be adaptable. Be fluid.鈥� And get excited, because 鈥渢he possibilities really are limitless.鈥�

That same approach, Bornet added, 鈥渁pplies far beyond Hockey.鈥� The NHL鈥檚 emphasis on identifying friction points and applying user-first design offers a practical template for any organization managing complex constraints and real-time decisions. Across industries, the challenge is the same: 鈥渢oo much data, too many variables, and decisions that can鈥檛 wait.鈥� The real breakthrough, he noted, 鈥渋sn鈥檛 the technology itself鈥攊t鈥檚 a mindset shift,鈥� from 鈥渁dding AI鈥� to 鈥渞emoving cognitive friction,鈥� and from 鈥渂uilding for power users鈥� to 鈥渄esigning for actual users.鈥�

Explore the episode, focused on the customer journey

Learn more about how the NHL engineered a game-changing, League-wide digital transformation:

• : Foster and Bornet talk with Thulium CEO Tamara McCleary about the untapped power of data, when it鈥檚 reliable, connected, and accessible, and how the NHL went from inspiration to iteration with the end users being essential to the transformation.

• : Foster聽talks with me about聽the process of creating a mobile app that聽meets聽the needs of 32聽distinct聽front offices, each with their own systems, use cases, day-to-day responsibilities, and priorities.

For five seasons on demand, visit .

Do you have ideas for topics or technologies we should cover, or would you like to be a guest on the show? We鈥檇 love to hear from you. E-mail us.

Timo Elliott is vice president and global innovation advocate for 51风流BTP at SAP.

In today鈥檚 omnichannel reality, delivering that elevated experience consistently and at scale is essential to protecting brand trust and loyalty. Peak moments like Black Friday and Cyber Monday amplify the challenge, when traffic surges and expectations for fast, personalized service are at their highest.

The team recognized that legacy systems couldn鈥檛 provide the speed, stability, or connected view required to meet those expectations at scale, prompting a shift to a modern customer experience (CX) foundation with SAP.

Modernizing the digital core with 51风流Commerce Cloud

Moving from legacy technology to gave Molton Brown a high鈥憄erformance engine designed for peak鈥憇eason reliability and continuous innovation. The results came quickly: 100% uptime during peak trade, even as volumes spiked to one order every three seconds during major events, freeing teams to focus on enhancing the customer experience rather than firefighting, and ensuring uninterrupted service for customers across global markets.

鈥淧eak performance isn鈥檛 a one鈥憈ime effort; it鈥檚 about reliability. We have to rely on technology operations to achieve 100% efficiency so the business can succeed, which in turn helps our customers succeed. Technology should enable business success, not block it鈥攁nd 51风流has proved that multiple times.鈥�

Naresh Krishnamurthy, Senior Manager 鈥� Business Transformation, Prestige, Kao UK Ltd

That stability also matters as product discovery increasingly begins beyond owned channels鈥攆rom social platforms to emerging AI鈥憄owered assistants鈥攚here consistent, trustworthy content and availability help the brand stay visible and credible wherever customers choose to engage. SAP鈥檚 evolving agentic commerce innovations anticipate this shift, ensuring products remain discoverable, trusted, and actionable across both human and AI agents.

A seamless luxury journey across channels

With and (formerly 51风流Emarsys) working together, Molton Brown aligns what customers see online with what they experience in store. Product categories, storytelling, and navigation are mirrored across channels; store associates can act on online browsing signals; and store teams are enabled with real鈥憈ime insight to deliver high鈥憈ouch clienteling experiences.

The result is an unbroken, premium journey that reduces friction and reinforces trust in the brand鈥攅xactly what luxury shoppers expect.

Personalization that builds loyalty, not just transactions

51风流Engagement Cloud helps Molton Brown deliver channel鈥慳ppropriate experiences, from mobile鈥慺irst engagement to email and in鈥憇tore clienteling, aligned to evolving customer preferences. These programs are complemented by thoughtful gifting moments, personalized birthday acknowledgments, and sustainability鈥慺ocused communications that strengthen repeat鈥憄urchase behavior.

Crucially, the team treats every holiday period as a data鈥憆ich learning cycle: months of performance testing, UX refinements, and campaign iteration inform what customers experience in the following season. Those insights help the team refine the experience so it remains consistent, intuitive, and premium, even under peak pressure. That consistency is what sustains loyalty, not just the promotions themselves.

As Naresh Krishnamurthy explains: 鈥淏lack Friday is not just about revenue; it鈥檚 about brand engagement and building the strong foundation that enhances the relationship through loyalty.鈥�

Ready for the next era of intelligent commerce

With a dependable CX core in place, Molton Brown is now exploring to anticipate risks ahead of campaigns, sharpen decision鈥憁aking, and streamline fulfillment鈥攁ugmenting the experience behind the scenes without compromising luxury standards.

This direction aligns naturally with SAP鈥檚 broader agentic commerce vision, where AI systems help interpret intent and keep trusted products discoverable and transactable across new surfaces鈥攁nother reason a reliable, 鈥渕achine鈥憆eadable鈥� CX foundation matters.

“Everything we鈥檙e doing ladders up to one goal: a truly connected customer experience鈥攑ersonal, consistent, and effortless in every channel.”

Molton Brown鈥檚 partnership with 51风流CX has reset what鈥檚 possible at peak, and every day after: dependable operations, consistent omnichannel experiences, and personalization that earns loyalty. The brand now scales confidently during its biggest moments, and stays ready for what鈥檚 next as AI changes how people (and agents) discover and buy.

This transformation positions Molton Brown to adapt quickly as customer expectations and digital commerce behaviors continue to evolve.

To explore how 51风流Commerce Cloud can elevate your customer experience, visit .

The hub brings together startups, academia, industry leaders, and defense organizations to co-create solutions that strengthen digital sovereignty, operational resilience, and readiness in response to threats to safety and security.

The launch comes at a pivotal moment. Defense organizations worldwide are shifting from traditional modernization to full digital transformation, with missions increasingly dependent on secure data flows, resilient supply chains, and systems that remain trusted even under stress. In addition, digital sovereignty has become a core component of readiness, requiring architectures that ensure customers maintain full control of their data and operations.

The launch took place in Munich, a new 鈥淪ilicon Valley鈥� for defense innovation, and featured customers, partners, academics, government officials, and representatives from SAP. The city offers a uniquely powerful foundation for the hub, gathering a fast-growing community of startups, leading research institutions such as the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and established aerospace and defense leaders. The hub unifies the strengths of these experts, connecting them so that they can coordinate their capabilities to meet defense needs rapidly and efficiently.

More than just a physical space, the hub introduces a new framework that breaks down silos and enables a powerful ecosystem that drives defense innovations. Creative startups, leading industry experts, government organizations, academia, and researchers can come together to make ideas mission-ready more quickly and securely, while maintaining the digital sovereignty necessary to protect information and maintain trust.

As a leading technology provider for the hub, 51风流acts as an enabler, not just an operator. Through our contributions, we have reaffirmed our role as a neutral technology partner, delivering secure digital platforms while leaving mission decisions entirely in customers鈥� hands.

Our long-standing experience and time-tested technology have proved the ability to perform under uncertainty and stress, a must for the readiness that defense demands, providing cyber-resilient architectures and real-time visibility into logistics during crises, as well as full governance and transparency.

Our cloud operations model, auditability frameworks, and strict access controls keep mission-critical systems secure, verifiable, and compliant.

With SAP鈥檚 involvement and support, the hub represents a significant step forward for defense innovation, serving as an important catalyst in a location with the potential to become a global center for the defense industry.

Andre Bechtold is president of 51风流Industries & Experiences.

Photography courtesy of Norbert Steinhauser.

According to industry , auto executives expect AI to boost product value by 22% and digital service value by 37% within three years. As vehicle portfolios expand鈥攅lectric, hybrid, software-defined, and increasingly customized鈥攖he operational complexity for automakers and suppliers has risen sharply. Nowhere is this more evident than in service parts management and new product introduction (NPI).

Service parts planners sit at the intersection of engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, and customer service. Their task is deceptively simple: ensure the right parts are available at the right time and place across a vehicle鈥檚 lifecycle. In reality, they grapple with fragmented data, limited inventory visibility, unpredictable demand signals, and compressed timelines鈥攅specially as new models and components are introduced at unprecedented speed. High data quality, tight orchestration across systems, and rapid decision-making are no longer nice to have, they are business-critical.

This is where becomes transformative. Instead of treating NPI as a linear, manual, and reactive process, AI agents can fundamentally reimagine how service parts planning is executed. By embedding AI directly into the planning workflow, service parts planners are supported鈥攏ot replaced鈥攂y intelligent systems that operate with full contextual awareness. These AI agents can monitor real-time data across inventories, supplier readiness, historical demand patterns, external risk factors, and engineering changes, as well as orchestrate the NPI process end to end.

In practice, this means planners move from firefighting to foresight. AI agents can automate sequential NPI steps, flag potential bottlenecks before they materialize, and dynamically adjust plans as conditions change. A single, unified dashboard provides transparency across the entire process, while built-in what-if simulations allow planners to test scenarios鈥攕upplier delays, demand spikes, geopolitical disruptions鈥攂efore decisions are locked in. Crucially, humans remain firmly in control. AI augments judgment, improves speed, and enhances confidence, rather than operating in a silo.

Platforms like 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP), combined with Joule and the agent builder capability in Joule Studio, can enable this multi-agent approach at enterprise scale. By integrating AI seamlessly with core business processes, automakers can ensure that intelligence flows across functions, rather than being trapped in silos. The result is not just automation, but orchestration鈥攚here systems, data, and people work in concert.

The impact is tangible. Automakers can significantly reduce planning cycle times and improve time-to-market for new products. Planning risk is lowered through continuous what-if analysis that incorporates both internal and external variables. Service readiness improves, ensuring that customers experience continuity and reliability even as product complexity increases. At an ecosystem level, this translates into greater resilience, lower costs, and higher customer satisfaction.

More broadly, this use case points to a shift in how we should think about customer-specific AI in automotive. The future will not be defined solely by smarter vehicles, but by smarter enterprises鈥攚here AI agents support decision-making across the value chain, from product inception to end-of-life service. In an industry under pressure to innovate faster, operate leaner, and remain sustainable, AI-driven operations are fast becoming a competitive necessity. The automotive ecosystem is evolving. Those who embrace AI not just as a technology but as a new operating model will be best positioned to lead it.

Sindhu Gangadharan is head of Customer Innovation Services and managing director for 51风流Labs India.