A Symphony of Partnership to Ring in the Era of the Autonomous Enterprise

SAP partners attending Partner Summit at SAP Sapphire in Orlando got a sneak peek into a moment in history: the launch of the Autonomous Enterprise.

During our event keynote, I took time to preview this exciting new venture, which was formally announced at SAP Sapphire, alongside our CEO and chairman of the Executive Board, Christian Klein.

We explored how the Autonomous Enterprise is SAP’s new north star and vision. It’s the future of business where AI transforms how people work and processes run.

Building on the Suite-as-a-Service foundation established last year at SAP Sapphire, SAP is reinventing itself for AI-native operations that move customers from point-solution AI to enterprise-wide autonomous operations.

With this launch, we’re also re-framing some of the misconceptions and hesitations that we know our customers have about AI.

AI isn’t technology for technology’s sake; it’s about driving outcomes, like real-time intelligence, automated end-to-end workflows, and continuous improvement—all important aspects that AI can deliver.

SAP partners are SAP’s force multiplier to bring the Autonomous Enterprise to life, expanding reach, credibility, and adoption. To help SAP partners evolve their practices to align with this vision, we also announced significant new investments in the partner ecosystem during the event.

SAP Business AI partner-led adoption program

The Partner Summit at SAP Sapphire in Orlando included the launch of a new offer that funds partners who activate, extend, build, and deploy SAP Business AI for customers. The SAP Business AI partner-led adoption program is a significant opportunity for partners to guide their clients to unlock the potential of SAP Business AI Platform.

At SAP Sapphire, SAP Executive Board Member and Chief Operating Officer Sebastian Steinhaeuser commented on our need to deepen our partner investments: “SAP pledges €100M to our partner ecosystem today to fast forward AI adoption and accelerate our customers path to the Autonomous Enterprise. Partners are able to tap into this fund when they support our customers in the adoption and consumption of SAP-delivered agents as well as by working with them to extend agents and build custom agents on our SAP Business AI Platform.”

The program has four packages:

• Adoption: AI Assistant activated and deployed
• Launch: Joule Studio partner-built custom agent or workflow/pro-code application
• Performance: Joule Studio partner-built custom agent and workflow/pro-code application
• Enterprise: Minimum of three Joule Studio partner-built custom agents and workflow/pro-code application

SAP will actively nominate customers with potential for this program. Partners can also reach out to SAP with their suggestions. If the customer qualifies, SAP will approve the proposed services, and the SAP partner will execute a statement of work with the customer and share the required documentation with SAP for funding.

SAP Business AI and data validated partner program

This new program distinguishes partners that demonstrate a holistic approach to SAP Business AI and data along with deep expertise and close alignment with our SAP Business AI and data strategy. Built on the foundation of the existing Competency Framework for the SAP PartnerEdge program and enhanced by SAP Business AI and data requirements, this designation signals to customers that these partners are capable and genuinely invested in delivering the full promise of the Autonomous Enterprise, including guidance with autonomous domain blueprint adoption and building agentic scenarios on SAP Business AI Platform.

Partner agent race to SAP TechEd

Building on the strong momentum of the partner agent race to SAP Sapphire, in which partners submitted more than 680 agents, SAP is inviting partners to join the next chapter of the program. Partner agent race to SAP TechEd spotlights enterprise-grade, secure, scalable, production‑deployed AI agents in live environments, built on SAP Business AI Platform.

For the partner agent race to SAP TechEd, agents must be:

• Developed with Joule Studio and deployed to SAP Business AI Platform runtime
• Deployed on SAP Business AI Platform using SAP Cloud SDK for AI and AI Foundation

Extensions of SAP-delivered agents must also be created with Joule Studio, and agents that only integrate via direct APIs or integration services for SAP BTP are out of scope for this project. SAP encourages partners to begin preparing eligible agents as soon as the timeline, evaluation criteria, and other details are released in the coming weeks.

End-to-end partner enablement strategy

SAP is introducing a structured enablement path that takes partners from awareness to action. SAP has combined large-scale enablement and market recognition programs to scale the partner ecosystem for the Autonomous Enterprise and SAP Business AI Platform.

The enablement plan includes a deep-dive Autonomous Enterprise curriculum for sales, presales, consultants, and developers. Partners can take advantage of hands-on workshops, regional innovation days in priority markets, and Hack2Build sprints focused on agent-based use cases. Dedicated Autonomous Enterprise and SAP Business AI Platform pages on SAP Partner Portal provide all the information partners need for success, regardless of where they are in their AI journey.

SAP will deepen this enablement strategy with the upcoming “AI era powered by the Autonomous Enterprise” learning, covering SAP Business AI Platform, Joule Studio, and more for learners who want hands-on platform experience. SAP will also host live webinars connecting partners directly to the Autonomous Enterprise narrative, platform strategy, and key commercial updates. Partners can find additional curated learning and enablement content on the Partner Zone at learning.sap.com.

A soundtrack for the future, a symphony of success

Closing out our keynote for Partner Summit at SAP Sapphire in Orlando, we underscored how critical our partners are to this moment.

Our focus is to enable partners to adopt and extend the Autonomous Enterprise and SAP Business AI Platform, accelerating ecosystem‑led growth in support of SAP’s AI‑first strategy. Our goal is ambitious: We want to see every SAP customer enjoy an AI experience with SAP in the next year. Let’s get them on the cloud and toward our vision.

Together, we’ll keep pushing the tempo, layering innovation, and building the soundtrack for the Autonomous Enterprise, ultimately creating a symphony of success for our customers.

Karl Fahrbach is chief partner officer of SAP.