Build, deploy, and scale enterprise AI with SAP AI Core. Discover how to turn generative AI into secure, governed solutions that drive business impact.
SAP AI Core, a service on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), helps organizations move from AI experimentation to production-ready applications. With centralized access to SAP and partner foundation models, orchestration capabilities, and enterprise-grade governance, developers can build, manage, and scale AI solutions with greater confidence.
In this video, discover how SAP AI Core provides a unified environment for exploring generative AI, tabular foundation models, AI agents, and predictive capabilities connected to your SAP business context. Learn how to experiment with models in a low-code playground, compare model performance, and optimize prompts before deploying AI use cases into production.
Explore how SAP AI Core helps your organization:
– Accelerate AI development: Experiment with foundation models, compare options, and refine prompts in a low-code environment.
– Connect AI to business data: Ground model outputs in enterprise data to support context-aware results and business applications.
– Orchestrate complex AI workflows: Use unified API access to coordinate AI capabilities across applications and business processes.
– Scale with confidence: Manage AI access, monitoring, security, governance, and costs through centralized administration.
– Move from experimentation to production: Turn AI concepts into operational solutions that support business needs at enterprise scale.
Whether you’re an AI developer, enterprise architect, or IT leader, SAP AI Core provides the infrastructure and tools to operationalize AI while maintaining visibility and control. By bringing foundation models, orchestration, and governance together, SAP helps teams move beyond isolated experiments toward scalable enterprise AI applications.
Explore SAP AI Core and discover how to build, deploy, and manage AI solutions at scale:
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About SAP:
As a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, SAP stands at the nexus of business and technology. For over 50 years, organizations have trusted SAP to bring out their best by uniting business-critical operations spanning finance, procurement, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. For more information, visit: https://sap.to/6059BH0eWh
From SAP R/3 and the first hands-on sessions to SAP HANA, the cloud, and AI, SAP TechEd has spent three decades tracking technological change—and, at times, anticipating what was to come.
SAP TechEd in 2026: Join the premier technical event to build what matters
The story began in 1996, when around 700 developers and technical experts gathered in Orlando, Florida, to explore a new generation of enterprise software.
“It wasn’t called ‘TechEd’ back then,” explained Karl Kessler, vice president of Product Management for ABAP AI at SAP, who attended the Orlando event as a product manager for SAP Technology. “It was originally called the SAP Technical Developers Conference.”
The event came at a time of technological change. SAP was opening up new ways to make SAP R/3 business processes accessible over the internet. BAPI programming interface provided access to SAP business logic through defined interfaces, while ALE made it easier to exchange messages between distributed systems. SAP was also working on a “business framework” designed to integrate distributed business processes.
This raised a question that seems obvious today: how could enterprise software evolve into a platform for an increasingly connected IT landscape?
From technical training to hands-on experience
The event gave developers an opportunity to explore these new possibilities. But its format was still a far cry from the multifaceted platform for knowledge sharing, experimentation, and community that SAP TechEd would become over the following three decades.
“In the beginning, it was all very academic,” Kessler recalled. “There were no keynotes or product demos on big stages. We went straight into an introduction to the architecture of SAP R/3, and the program consisted mainly of lectures: less conference spectacle, more technical classroom.”
The second event, held in Los Angeles later in 1996, offered a glimpse of how quickly the SAP ecosystem was evolving. SAP and Microsoft showcased new possibilities involving Internet Explorer, SQL Server, and Microsoft Office 97. Hands-on sessions were introduced for the first time, giving participants the opportunity to work with SAP software themselves.
“And ‘hands-on’ really meant getting your hands dirty back then,” Kessler emphasized. “Participants had to install the software on their own laptops. Ready-to-use images that you can deploy in just a few clicks today? Not a chance.”
For the first time, participants had access to a software environment where they could experiment for themselves—something that has since become a staple of SAP TechEd.
Where technology meets community
In the years that followed, this shift continued. With the introduction of SAP NetWeaver, technologies like Java, portals, the web, and XML became increasingly prominent alongside the traditional ABAP world. SAP TechEd was evolving from an event where technology was explained into a place where developers could try it out and discuss it for themselves.
The community, too, began to play a bigger role. The SAP Developer Network created new opportunities for exchange: knowledge was no longer shared only from the stage, but also between sessions, online, and across company boundaries.
Kessler witnessed this evolution firsthand. From 1996 until the onset of the pandemic, he attended every SAP TechEd event in the U.S. and Europe. He initially took part as a product manager and speaker, later helping shape the program as a track lead and, for several years, an agenda lead.
Throughout the 2000s, SAP TechEd increasingly became a community experience. Kessler has particularly vivid memories of the events in Las Vegas: “During the day, there were lectures and four-hour hands-on sessions. But the day didn’t end when the official program did. People went out for dinner together, saw shows, or met up at the hotel in the evening. Many of us were there for practically a whole week. And if we had time afterward, we might take a trip to the Grand Canyon or Death Valley.”
By then, SAP TechEd had become much more than a conference program. Alongside the technical content, it was the encounters, conversations, and shared experiences that helped shape the community.
New formats emerged from around 2000 onward, further strengthening that community spirit. Demo Jam gave developers a stage to showcase what they had built. The Community Clubhouse created space for conversations beyond traditional presentations. Roadmap sessions offered a look at the SAP technologies to come, while hands-on sessions turned attendees from listeners into active participants.
“Over time, exchanging ideas became at least as important as the technology itself,” Kessler recalled. “The more complex the topics became, the more important it was to share experiences, try things out together, and learn from one another.”
Photo courtesy Karl Kessler
Technology was no longer simply presented. It was explored, discussed, and developed further–together.
When the future becomes the present
Throughout the 2000s, the technological foundations of enterprise software continued to evolve. Initially, the focus had been on connecting SAP systems with other applications through open interfaces and web technologies. Increasingly, however, a different question came to the fore: what if vast amounts of data could be made available almost in real time, without having to move and process them so extensively first?
Around 2010, SAP TechEd brought this idea to life. Vishal Sikka introduced SAP HANA and in-memory computing, an approach that processes data directly in main memory. It challenged established assumptions about database performance. Initially focused on analyzing large volumes of data, SAP HANA later became a foundation for applications as well.
Photo courtesy Karl Kessler
For SAP TechEd, this marked another step forward. The event was no longer just about learning new technologies; it was also about exploring their potential and understanding what they could mean in practice. An idea that had once sounded like science fiction became the starting point for new applications and business processes.
“It was the transition from ‘What if?’ to ‘This is how we do it,’” Kessler said.
Meanwhile, the community continued to evolve. The SAP Mentor program gave particularly engaged community members a new role as sounding boards, ambassadors, and representatives of the wider community. Technology and people were evolving together.
“Not every prediction from back then came true exactly as expected,” Kessler reflected. “Some ideas disappeared, while others developed in completely different ways. But time and again, concepts that had sounded futuristic at SAP TechEd went on to become part of everyday working life.”
With SAP Fiori, SAP S/4HANA, and the cloud, new topics arrived at SAP TechEd that would go on to shape the SAP landscape. Developers could experience and discuss how enterprise software was changing—and what those changes meant for their own work.
The focus was no longer just on what a system could do technically. Increasingly, the questions were about how enterprise software should be used: on which devices, through which interfaces, with what data, and with how much flexibility.
The future was becoming more tangible. It was no longer confined to architecture diagrams and technical concepts; it was visible on screens, in mobile applications, and in cloud environments.
At SAP TechEd, these changes were not just presented but explored and developed further together. What once opened up new possibilities became an integral part of the SAP landscape.
The next future Is already taking shape
Over the years, SAP TechEd continually found new ways to bring technological developments to life and bring the SAP community together. New formats, greater interaction, and hands-on experiences had all helped shape the event. The community had long since become much more than an audience: it was an essential part of what made SAP TechEd what it was.
Then came 2020. “The global pandemic suddenly took away so much of what we had come to take for granted,” Kessler said. “SAP TechEd still took place, but it went digital. There were no exhibition halls where people could meet, no spontaneous reunions or conversations in the corridors, no discussions after a session that unexpectedly sparked a new idea.”
Hands-on experiences and exchanges with others had to take place under entirely different conditions. Something that had grown over many years could not simply be replicated online, one-to-one. “That’s when we realized just how much SAP TechEd depends on personal interaction,” Kessler recalled.
One of Kessler’s most memorable experiences shows how important that interaction was, even behind the scenes: the “speaker ready room.” Every year, around 130 speakers gathered in a large ballroom during SAP TechEd week to prepare for their sessions and help one another out. If they ran into problems with connectivity, licenses, updates, or integrating different components, they worked together to find solutions—often on the spot and under time pressure.
Over the years, this gave rise to a speaker community made up of familiar faces and newcomers who worked alongside SAP IT and the event organizers to make SAP TechEd happen. For Kessler, the ready room embodies the event’s distinctive sense of teamwork. Everyone wanted the sessions to succeed and participants to have the best possible experience. The shared mindset was simple: we’ll make it work—together.
In 2026, SAP TechEd finds itself at another technological turning point. Artificial intelligence is changing how software is developed, used and increasingly executed. Developers are working with AI-powered tools. Applications can take on tasks. Agents can execute processes and interact with one another.
“We have no more idea today of what will be commonplace 10 years from now than developers in 1996 could have known which of their futuristic ideas would eventually become standard practice,” Kessler said. “But that’s exactly the point. The future looked different at every SAP TechEd, yet the questions behind it have remained much the same: how can technology better support people? How can systems work together? How can we make complex processes simpler? What becomes possible when technical boundaries are pushed?”
SAP TechEd Berlin 2025
So, what connects the old hands attending their 30th SAP TechEd with the young talents joining for the first time in 2026?
Kessler’s answer is simple: “We all want to know what comes next—and discover together what’s possible.”
SAP TechEd in 2026: Get news, stories, and updates from SAP’s premier technical event
What AI needs is your business context: the definitions, rules, relationships, and process logic your business has built over years.
SAP Business Data Cloud helps turn that context into trusted, reusable data products, so SAP Business AI Platform is working from a real understanding of how your business runs: https://sap.to/6052BGqFRn
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608 brings new master data innovations to help organizations strengthen data governance, improve user productivity, support compliance, and streamline business partner and product master data management.
In this release highlights video, Mirella’s digital twin explores the latest master data enhancements delivered with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608. See how new capabilities for business partner data and product master data help organizations protect sensitive information, improve user experience, and manage data more efficiently across connected systems.
You’ll learn how payment card data category access control helps protect sensitive business partner information by allowing only authorized users to view payment card details. The video also covers data category-based replication, which helps ensure sensitive payment card information is shared only with target systems configured to receive it.
The release also introduces usability and extensibility enhancements across SAP Fiori apps for customer and supplier master data. These updates include faster data loading, responsive interfaces, smoother scrolling across large datasets, and adaptation project support to tailor standard apps without modifying the original code.
For compliance-focused processes, automated watch-list screening helps screen business partners against sanctioned party lists when records are created or saved. For product master data, thumbnail previews add visual context to product records, while API-driven variant configuration helps teams create and update configurable product options programmatically.
Highlights include:
🔐 Payment card data protection — Control access to sensitive payment card details based on data controller and purpose.
🔄 Data category-based replication — Replicate sensitive business partner data only to configured target systems.
⚡ UX enhancements — Work faster in Manage Customer and Supplier Master Data apps with responsive loading and smoother navigation.
🛠️ SAP Fiori app extensibility — Adapt standard SAP Fiori apps using SAP UI5 Adaptation Projects in Business Application Studio.
✅ Watch-list screening integration — Screen business partners against sanctioned party lists as part of the standard workflow.
🖼️ Product attachment thumbnails — Preview product images directly in list and detail pages with Harmonized Document Management.
🔗 Product variant configuration via API — Read, create, and update configurable product options through the Product Master API.
Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction and welcome
00:29 – Payment card data category access control
00:55 – Business partner data category-based replication
01:22 – UX improvements for customer and supplier master data
01:49 – SAP Fiori app extensibility with adaptation projects
02:14 – Watch-list screening integration
02:41 – Product master data thumbnail support
03:09 – Product variant configuration via Product Master API
03:35 – Release summary and closing
• Read Mirella’s blog on master data release highlights in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2608:
https://sap.to/6058BGReTu
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About SAP:
As a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, SAP stands at the nexus of business and technology. For over 50 years, organizations have trusted SAP to bring out their best by uniting business-critical operations spanning finance, procurement, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. For more information, visit: https://sap.to/6055BGReTX
What does it take to deliver world-class tennis equipment when every moment matters? For Wilson, performance starts long before center court.
Alex de Minaur trusts Wilson Sporting Goods to bring precision, speed, and consistency to every match. Behind that performance is a global supply chain designed to move as fast as the athletes who depend on it, connecting products, systems, data, and processes from factory floor to center court.
See how SAP helps Wilson build the operational agility, anticipation, and resilience needed to get the right products to the right place at the right time. Because when everything works together, teams are ready for anything.
Read the story on SAP News Center:
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About SAP:
As a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, SAP stands at the nexus of business and technology. For over 50 years, organizations have trusted SAP to bring out their best by uniting business-critical operations spanning finance, procurement, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. For more information, visit: https://sap.to/6053BG6xAF
In this episode of SAP Design Talks, Liam Spradlin, senior UX designer at Google working on the Material Design team, shares how he defines good design as something that works because it understands people, context, and the environments where experiences happen. From the origins of Material Design to the future of adaptive interfaces, Liam explains how design helps make unfamiliar technologies feel understandable, using metaphor, materiality, and human intuition to shape better digital experiences.
Liam also reflects on how AI is reshaping parts of his creative process. For him, AI is not a replacement for design judgment or human creativity. Instead, it can make certain steps richer, especially when building prototypes that help communicate ideas more clearly to stakeholders. He makes a grounded case for understanding what AI is good at today, while continuing to strengthen the taste, craft, and point of view that make design meaningful.
Finally, Liam offers practical advice for designers navigating a fast-changing creative landscape: do not stop, go a level deeper. He encourages designers to explore their own aesthetic instincts, make things quickly, learn by experimenting, and draw inspiration from other creative fields. If you work in design, product, or technology, this conversation is a thoughtful reminder that design remains deeply human: something people create for other people.
Learn more and explore the full SAP Design Talks series.
👉 https://sap.to/6053B1IqAR
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About SAP:
As a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, SAP stands at the nexus of business and technology. For over 50 years, organizations have trusted SAP to bring out their best by uniting business-critical operations spanning finance, procurement, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. For more information, visit: https://sap.to/6051B1IqAZ
We’ve all been there. 🫣 With Joule Work, teams can bring the right insights, data, and business context together faster, so teams can get things done faster.
That’s the power of AI that understands how your business works.
Explore SAP Business AI:
https://www.sap.com/products/artificial-intelligence.html
Product development is no longer just an operational function.
In this SAP interview, Sarah Mei Niesel and Achim from DSC Software AG discuss why PLM needs stronger leadership, cleaner data, and a more integrated approach across product development, manufacturing, and supply chain.
The way payments are made is changing rapidly, shaping the future of modern point-of-sale systems. The traditional payment process is becoming a key part of the customer experience, as customers expect speed, flexibility, and smooth integration.
Digitalize your business with intelligent POS software
While cash is losing importance, contactless payments and mobile wallets are becoming dominant, with many providers enabling customers to make payments directly from their smartphones. These shifts put constant pressure on retailers to update their systems. The demand for mobile, contactless, and secure payment solutions keeps growing.
Market trends determine success
As a globally operating company, SAP keeps a close eye on the latest trends, looking not just to adapt its solutions but to rethink them. SAP Customer Checkout, the intelligent integrated point of sale (POS) solution for retail, merchandising, and catering, relies on strong partnerships to stay ahead and keep pace with those trends. Speed and the right collaborations make the difference.
“The POS market is in constant flux. Competitors are alert and customers arrive every day with new demands and ideas,” said Harald Tebbe, development lead for SAP Customer Checkout, speaking to the scale of change in the market. “Ultimately, market trends decide who stays successful and who doesn’t. Even though payment processes aren’t our direct business, our focus is on offering customers a wide range of payment options to make the end customer’s shopping experience as simple and convenient as possible. Payment infrastructure is a critical component of that experience. Our trusted technology partnerships are what make it possible, which is why we’re continuously looking for new collaborations.”
End-to-end solution through SAP Customer Checkout and Viva.com
As the first tech bank in Europe for businesses and being active in 29 countries, Viva.com offers customers an integrated omnichannel payments, banking, and financing platform.
Viva.com’s leading Tap on Any Device payment technology takes centre stage. It turns any Android device—from fixed and mobile payment terminals to self-checkout tills and handheld devices—or iPhone into a secure card terminal, optimizing the customer experience and helping customers pay wherever they are. Tap on Any Device by Viva.com supports over 40 payment methods, DCC, surcharge, offline payments, while the tech bank delivers real-time settlement 365 days a year and a cashback scheme reducing transaction fees to zero percent.
Since SAP Customer Checkout was built to be hardware-independent, works across a variety of devices, and integrates with different payment terminals, the partnership creates an ideal end-to-end solution for customers in retail, consumer goods, food service, and other sectors. Open API interfaces in SAP Customer Checkout and Viva.com’s Terminal Integration Hub made the integration straightforward and quick to implement.
“With Viva.com, SAP Customer Checkout customers in 29 European countries get integrated payments and banking in one platform: From omnichannel payments and our leading Tap on Any Device technology to fast, seamless access to tailored financing options -no need to switch providers,” Harry Xenophontos, Chief Business Officer at Viva.com, said. “That’s the unique proposition we’ve built with SAP.”
Secure data communication for customers
Integrating SAP Customer Checkout with Viva.com requires a dedicated plug-in, which simplifies the connection between the POS system and the payment terminal by ensuring data is transferred via the HTTPS protocol, keeping communication secure. This matters in a period where both innovation and the protection of sensitive data are front of mind.
Customers also benefit from a particularly fast setup process and the freedom to choose from a wide range of devices to use as payment terminals. With three possible integration options, the system offers flexibility so merchants can find the right fit for their specific needs.
The joint project supports the development and delivery of forward-looking POS solutions that work well for both merchants and end customers.
Elena Vavitsa is a senior solution specialist for SAP Customer Checkout.
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What makes an SAP S/4HANA project truly successful? It’s rarely just the technology.
In this interview, Sarah Mei Niesel from Global Product Marketing for PLM Solutions at SAP speaks with Peter Vandrey from CIDEON Software & Services, an SAP partner, about what sets successful SAP S/4HANA transformations apart. Drawing on their experience with Elementaranalyse Systeme GmbH, they discuss why strategic clarity, aligned processes, and structured product data are essential to long-term project success.
You’ll learn why SAP projects often run into challenges when requirements are unclear or product data is inconsistent, and how a strong foundation from day one can help reduce complexity, rework, cost, and time to market. The conversation also explores the role of SAP Engineering Control Center in creating a stable foundation for product data and enabling smoother collaboration between engineering and downstream processes.
Watch to gain practical insights into how companies can build a scalable, future-ready engineering and documentation landscape as part of their SAP S/4HANA transformation.
Listen to the full discussion in the “Inside SAP S/4HANA Cloud” podcast:
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1ZuR0irCBBU6QO7enpP2et
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/de-episode-02-sap-engineering-control-center/id1483791349?i=1000764241186
Chapters:
00:00 – What makes an SAP S/4HANA project successful?
00:33 – Why SAP projects rarely fail because of technology
01:08 – Lessons from Elementaranalyse Systeme GmbH
01:53 – The role of SAP Engineering Control Center
02:46 – Why clean product data matters from day one
03:01 – Listen to the full podcast discussion
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About SAP:
As a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, SAP stands at the nexus of business and technology. For over 50 years, organizations have trusted SAP to bring out their best by uniting business-critical operations spanning finance, procurement, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. For more information, visit: https://www.sap.com/index.html
