In October 2025, at SAP Connect, we introduced next‑gen SAP Ariba and outlined a major shift in how procurement technology must evolve to meet today’s realities. Today, that vision becomes real.

I’m pleased to announce that next‑gen SAP Ariba is now available, marking the next phase in SAP’s journey to reimagine source‑to‑pay for the age of AI. This milestone represents the transition from announcement to execution, bringing a fundamentally rebuilt platform into customers’ hands.

This milestone comes alongside strong industry recognition. SAP has been named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Source‑to‑Pay Suites, an acknowledgment that aligns with the delivery of next-gen SAP Ariba and our continued focus on platform modernization and AI‑driven innovation at enterprise scale.

Why rebuilding the foundation matters

As procurement leaders know, AI’s potential is widely recognized, but its impact has often been uneven. Confidence is high, yet results depend on more than algorithms alone. AI only delivers value when it is supported by the right data, processes, and platform architecture. That belief shaped our decision to rebuild SAP Ariba from the ground up.

Independent analyst firm Ardent Partners describes next‑gen SAP Ariba as “a complete reengineering of the largest and most entrenched source‑to‑pay platform in the world,” emphasizing that this move goes far beyond adding AI features to legacy systems. Instead, it establishes the architectural foundation required for AI to operate reliably and at scale.

This aligns with what we consistently hear from customers that sustainable impact requires modernization at the core.

An AI‑native source-to-pay platform built on SAP Business Technology Platform

Next‑gen SAP Ariba is built on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), providing a unified, real‑time data foundation across the source‑to‑pay lifecycle. This shift enables tighter integration with SAP Cloud ERP, improved extensibility, and faster innovation delivery.

By moving to SAP BTP, SAP Ariba can support open APIs, cross‑suite data consistency, and the responsiveness required for intelligent, AI‑driven procurement operations—capabilities that are increasingly expected of leading source‑to‑pay platforms but are difficult to achieve on legacy architectures.

Current next‑gen capabilities will continue to be delivered incrementally throughout 2026 and into 2027, giving customers flexibility to adopt innovation at a pace that aligns with their business priorities.

Embedded intelligence with Joule: moving from insight to action

A defining element of next‑gen SAP Ariba is the deep integration of Joule directly into procurement workflows. Rather than treating AI as an optional add‑on, next‑gen SAP Ariba can embed intelligence where work happens—supporting faster, more informed decisions while reducing friction across everyday processes.

Early capabilities include:

• A Bid Analysis Agent, which can automatically evaluate complex bid scenarios, including total cost considerations
• AI-assisted contract support to help automate routine inquiries, generate summaries, and provide instant access to contract details

These capabilities reflect a broader shift from systems that require constant manual input to platforms that actively support outcomes.

A more unified, intuitive procurement experience

Next‑gen SAP Ariba also addresses long‑standing fragmentation across the source‑to‑pay lifecycle.

Key improvements include:

• SAP Ariba Intake Management, now globally available, providing a single entry point for procurement requests
• A simplified SAP Fiori‑based user experience, delivered through a central launchpad
• A modernized contract lifecycle, supported through integration with Icertis Contract Intelligence

Together, these improvements are designed to make procurement easier to engage with while working to ensure processes remain connected, compliant, and intelligent behind the scenes.

What this means for customers

For existing SAP Ariba customers, next‑gen SAP Ariba provides choice and continuity. Customers can:

• Transition to next‑gen SAP Ariba on a voluntary basis.
• Access next‑gen capabilities without commercial implications.
• Run current and next‑gen environments in parallel during an active transition, reducing risk and disruption.

SAP is providing tools, services, and advance timelines to support a managed transition, allowing organizations to move forward with confidence rather than urgency.

The foundation for what comes next

Next‑gen SAP Ariba is not an endpoint, it is the foundation for the future of procurement.

With an AI‑native architecture, embedded agentic intelligence, and a unified user experience, this new generation of SAP Ariba helps organizations move beyond transactional efficiency toward smarter decisions, greater resilience, and measurable business outcomes.

As Ardent Partners observed, this rebuild has the potential to act as a catalyst—not just for SAP Ariba customers, but for the broader procurement technology landscape. By combining scale, data, and AI in a fundamentally new way, next‑gen SAP Ariba is helping define what modern source‑to‑pay platforms can deliver.

With the solution now available, we look forward to partnering with customers as they move from vision to value. Together, we can shape the future of intelligent procurement.

Baber Farooq is senior vice president of Product Marketing for SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass.

Built on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), SAP Distributed Energy Resources (SAP DER) can provide a trusted data backbone that helps unify technical assets with commercial agreements, transforming millions of prosumer devices into coordinated services.

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, SAP empowers utilities to own their energy transition. 

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 prosumers alike. The number of connected assets is growing rapidly, generating vast amounts of operational, commercial, and customer data. Managing this data reliably and consistently is one of the defining challenges of the next energy decade. 

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 data orchestration: a trusted, intelligent foundation that harmonizes information across every process, partner, and device and ensures they own rather than rent their energy transition capabilities. 

From distributed assets to orchestrated intelligence 

The SAP Distributed Energy Resources solution is designed to meet exactly this challenge. Built on SAP 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. 

Rather than acting as an operational control system, SAP 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. 

“The complexity our customers face with prosumer data is exponential. They need reliability, performance, and consistency across all their data sources, and that’s exactly where SAP Distributed Energy Resources comes in.” 

Kim Maren Ekrutt, Global Industry Business Unit Utilities Co‑Head, SAP 

Two pillars of the SAP 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 how energy is consumed, produced, stored, and shared, enabling new energy community and peer-to-peer 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. 

Connecting data, processes, and people 

Utilities already rely on SAP for mission-critical processes such as meter to cash, asset management, and customer experience. SAP 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. SAP has assembled a curated ecosystem of specialist technology partners, each bringing deep domain expertise that complements SAP’s enterprise data platform. Data stays with the utility, business logic remains under their control, and the customer relationship belongs to them. 

SAP’s technology partners extend the platform across six critical domains: 

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

“Our role is to help utilities master the growing data complexity and turn it into opportunity. With SAP Distributed Energy Resources and our partner ecosystem, we’re connecting data, processes, and partners into one intelligent platform that enables utilities to own their energy transition.” 

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

About SAP Distributed Energy Resources 

SAP 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’s 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. 

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

Long before a customer becomes your customer, their engagement with your brand begins. Customer experience (CX) starts with early interactions like marketing engagement, product exploration, and initial conversations with sales teams.

These critical pre-purchase moments generate interest and open pathways toward deeper customer relationships. Organizations that convert interest into measurable outcomes with clarity, accuracy, and speed strengthen the overall customer experience, thereby boosting loyalty and bottom lines.

CX becomes even more meaningful as opportunities progress into clear agreements supported by accurate configuration, pricing, and quoting. This transition from opportunity to agreement represents one of the most consequential stages in the customer journey.

Lead-to-cash represents a coordinated motion across sales engagement, pricing precision, service alignment, and performance visibility. When these capabilities operate together, organizations deliver consistent customer experiences while maintaining operational clarity.

Eight years running: a leadership signal at the heart of lead-to-cash

Within the lead-to-cash journey, quoting connects sales engagement, performance management, service continuity, and ERP alignment. It represents a critical moment where customer intent is translated into accurate pricing, configuration, and agreement terms.

When SAP CPQ operates within SAP Customer Experience, it becomes part of a connected lead-to-cash motion that spans SAP Sales Cloud, SAP Service Cloud, sales performance management solutions, and SAP ERP. Sales teams engage with structured opportunity data and guided pricing logic. Service teams inherit full visibility into agreed terms. Performance leaders access insights grounded in accurate pipeline and quoting data.

When it comes to this level of intelligent, real-time, connected processes, very few companies can compete. SAP was again recognized as a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Configure, Price, and Quote Application Suites. This marks the eighth consecutive year SAP has been positioned in the Leaders quadrant based on Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision.

SAP CPQ supports organizations in producing accurate quotes — even in environments with advanced configuration and pricing requirements — helping accelerate sales cycles and improve sales execution across complex selling environments.

Extending CPQ leadership across SAP Customer Experience

In modern enterprises, quoting connects directly to demand generation, pipeline management, contract processes, fulfilment, and service delivery. SAP Customer Experience brings together commerce, customer data, marketing, sales, service, and sales performance management into an integrated portfolio designed to support truly connected customer journeys.

Within this portfolio, SAP CPQ plays a pivotal role in the lead-to-cash journey. When integrated with SAP CX solutions, it helps align pricing strategy, product configuration, customer agreements, and sales performance insights across the revenue lifecycle. The result is a more reliable transition from opportunity to revenue realization.

Connected lead-to-cash experience

For CX leaders, lead-to-cash is a core driver of experience differentiation and revenue execution. A connected lead-to-cash strategy ensures that:

• Customer intent is translated into accurate configuration and pricing.
• Sales engagements reflect approved pricing and product standards.
• Customer agreements are consistently captured and supported across systems.
• Sales performance and revenue outcomes remain visible and aligned across teams.

Business impact of connected lead-to-cash

Lead-to-cash determines how consistently organizations translate customer engagement into measurable outcomes.

By combining SAP Customer Experience capabilities with a CPQ solution recognized for its ability to execute and completeness of vision, organizations strengthen alignment across sales, pricing, service, performance management, and ERP systems, transforming engagement into measurable outcomes with confidence and precision.

In today’s environment, customer experience and operational precision are closely connected. Strength in one reinforces performance across the other.

You can learn more about how SAP CX connects SAP Sales Cloud, SAP CPQ, SAP Service Cloud, sales performance management solutions, and SAP ERP across the lead-to-cash journey here.

Sindy Conway is senior Product Marketing consultant for SAP Customer Experience.

In the NHL, decisions off the ice are just as critical as the plays on it. From trades to contracts to long-term planning, each front office is responsible for shaping its team’s future while keeping pace with a fast-moving, competitive League. Just as in business, success depends on turning data into informed, timely decisions that drive results.

Founded in 1917, the National Hockey League (NHL) 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—a 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 Chris Foster, VP of Digital Business Development at the NHL, described as the League’s primary pain point: disconnected, legacy data management systems. Pascal Bornet, AI and automation expert, applauded this approach, advising organizations to “start with the friction points.”

Phase one, Foster explained, was “really updating our backend,” consolidating all the League’s data, from contract to salary information, and combining it with player statistics and video clips on SAP 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, “use cases, day-to-day responsibilities, and current challenges with data or workflows,” Foster explained.

The key to developing the League’s new application, Foster said, was leveraging “design-thinking principles” and “authentic user feedback” 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’s 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, “It’s about the right data, instantly and everywhere.” By rethinking the process first and prioritizing user needs, the League created a foundation for change—one that keeps “humans firmly in command” and uses technology to “amplify judgment, not replace it,” Bornet added.

Foster attributed the new app’s resounding success to the processing power of SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP 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 SAP 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’s 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. “This is a project with a multi-year road map,” 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’s playbook: “Let go of preconceived notions and realign your priorities according to user feedback. Be adaptable. Be fluid.” And get excited, because “the possibilities really are limitless.”

That same approach, Bornet added, “applies far beyond Hockey.” The NHL’s 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: “too much data, too many variables, and decisions that can’t wait.” The real breakthrough, he noted, “isn’t the technology itself—it’s a mindset shift,” from “adding AI” to “removing cognitive friction,” and from “building for power users” to “designing for actual users.”

Explore the episode, focused on the customer journey

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

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

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

For five seasons on demand, visit url.sap/btpcustomerconversations.

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

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

SAP introduces SAP Cloud ERP Private 2025 FPS01. Designed to turn complexity into clarity, FPS01 builds on the landmark 2025 release from October, advancing AI innovations, delivering industry-ready data products, and further strengthening the core to help enterprises navigate today’s global operations.  

A modern foundation for growth at global scale 

In an era defined by global volatility and ambitious growth targets, businesses require a system that doesn’t just record data but actively anticipates needs and simplifies complexity. SAP Cloud ERP Private is evolving into a truly AI-enabled ERP, serving as the critical core foundation that can allow organizations to navigate the realities of global operations while maintaining total control over their footprint. 

To achieve this, innovations in FPS01 are strategically delivered across three key dimensions: AI, data, and applications. 

AI in action: from assistants to agents 

The shift toward an AI-enabled ERP is highlighted by two key advancements in FPS01: 

1. AI assistants and specialized agents: A standout in this release is the Change Record Management Agent for R&D. Previously a manual, high-friction process, this agent can now autonomously analyze change impacts and propose next steps, helping to free R&D teams to focus on innovation. 
2. Process embedded AI: SAP is making the system more intuitive through Joule. Instead of navigating complex menus, users can now use conversational shortcuts, for example, to instantly search service contracts or extend expiring prices in sales, turning multi-minute tasks into five-second interactions. 

Looking at the road ahead, SAP is building toward agent-to-agent collaboration, where specialized agents across functions like R&D and procurement “talk” to one another to resolve bottlenecks before they even reach a human user. FPS01 is a critical step toward that future. 

Data: industry-ready insights 

On the data front, SAP is introducing specialized data products for key industries, like retail, and functional areas, such as asset management and services. These are not just tables; they are pre-configured, business-ready data sets that align with our SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC) roadmap. This helps ensure your data is “AI-ready,” allowing you to move from raw data to industry-specific insights with zero friction. 

Application: strengthening the global core 

On the application side, SAP continues to deliver deep functional enhancements based on direct customer feedback to help ensure your business backbone remains agile. A key highlight is the new Multistage Intercompany Sales and Stock Transfer. Following our commitment at the RISE with SAP moment in November, SAP is further expanding the scope to cover two-entity transfers, enabling automated orchestration across multiple legal entities. This can ensure even the most complex global supply chains remain transparent and compliant. 

A full collection of deep-dive articles on the new FPS01 is available on SAP Community. 

Looking ahead: your catalyst for transformation 

FPS01 reflects a core SAP principle: innovation should be both a foundation for today and a catalyst for what’s next. With enterprise AI, industry-ready data, and a stronger application core, organizations can run smarter and transform at their own pace. 

To see these innovations in person, register for SAP Sapphire to experience the future of the autonomous enterprise. 

Maura Hameroff is chief marketing officer for SAP Cloud ERP Private and RISE with SAP.

With the EU Pay Transparency Directive reshaping how organizations disclose and govern pay, transparency is no longer optional—it’s becoming a defining leadership imperative. This International Women’s Day, organizations have an opportunity to turn compliance into trust, equity, and smarter workforce decisions.

“When we give, we gain” is this year’s International Women’s Day theme, and in the workplace, giving can take many forms: mentoring, advocacy, visibility, resources, and transparency.

For organizations, pay transparency is one of the most tangible ways to “give” in service of gender equality. When employees better understand their compensation, historically underrepresented groups gain clarity and fairness. And when organizations commit to equitable practices, the benefits ripple across the business—from greater trust and engagement to stronger talent outcomes and overall performance.

Transparency starts with accountability

Many organizations are still early in their pay transparency journey. At SAP, this has been a multi-year effort grounded in data, accountability, and action. Each year, we conduct global internal pay equity analyses comparing employees in comparable roles, levels, and geographies to ensure compensation is fair, market-aligned, and internally consistent. When outliers are identified, centrally funded adjustments bring pay in-line.

This reflects SAP’s fair pay philosophy: equitable compensation that is transparent and free from bias, forming the foundation for performance-based differentiation.

Technology is central to this approach. SAP operationalizes fair pay through SAP SuccessFactors Compensation and SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, embedding pay analysis, job architecture, and range guidance, so managers can consistently apply structured, explainable decisions during hiring and annual cycles.

Today, over 99% of SAP employees worldwide have transparency into their pay range through a compensation assistant tool built on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). This tool integrates SAP SuccessFactors data to display salary ranges across career levels, which can replace guesswork with confidence and can give employees clear insight into their value, career progression, and how pay decisions are made.

From compliance to strategic intelligence: the EU Pay Transparency Directive

The shift from voluntary transparency to regulatory mandate is already underway. For European Union member states, the EU Pay Transparency Directive is driving change by requiring salary range disclosures in advance of the first interview, employee access to pay information, and gender pay gap reporting, with corrective action mandated when unexplained gaps exceed 5%. As implementation timelines approach, HR, legal, and finance teams across the EU are racing to operationalize new transparency requirements, making pay governance a board-level issue for many organizations.

“One of the most meaningful shifts introduced by the EU Pay Transparency Directive is giving employees clearer tools to understand their own compensation. With capabilities like individual pay transparency reports generated through SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, employees now have a self-service way to see how their pay compares within their role and organization. That level of visibility is a major step forward for pay equity because it brings clarity to something that historically has been difficult for employees to question or address.”

Anita Lettink, Future of Work and Pay Expert

Compliance is just the starting point. Organizations that embed transparency into everyday HR processes ensure pay decisions are consistent, equitable, and aligned with skills, performance, and business priorities. SAP is already preparing customers for this shift, with tools designed to help meet these new requirements confidently.

With EU Pay Transparency Insights, a new capability within the People Intelligence package in SAP Business Data Cloud, organizations can:

• Identify structural pay gaps and outliers before they become systemic issues.
• Connect compensation data to job architecture, skills, and performance to inform decisions and governance.
• Generate directive-aligned, ready-to-use reports without heavy manual effort.
• Turn transparency into action, guiding adjustments, equitable promotions, and workforce planning at scale.

These insights complement established fair pay practices—such as structured job architecture, peer-based analysis, and centrally funded adjustments—enabling customers to implement transparent, equitable pay practices while meeting regulatory requirements.

Giving to gain: the leadership opportunity

This International Women’s Day, transparency should be treated as a strategic priority, not a compliance task. Clear, consistent pay practices help employees understand their value and help leaders make smarter, data-driven workforce decisions.

Pay transparency is accelerating, and organizations that act now will be the ones that lead. Don’t miss our upcoming webinar, EU Pay Transparency: Turning Fair and Equitable Pay into Your Strategic Advantage, where Future of Work and Pay expert Anita Lettink will break down the latest regulatory expectations and share best practices for building fair, equitable, and motivating compensation structures. Register here.

Maryann Abbajay is chief revenue officer for SAP SuccessFactors.

The landscape of user interfaces is undergoing a seismic shift. The explosion of consumer AI has reset expectations for business software: Employees now expect their enterprise apps to have the same intuitive, conversational interfaces they use at home.

This has led to a “Terminal Renaissance,” a return to text-in, text-out interaction.

For many applications, text works, letting users express intent naturally with no onboarding. However, text struggles to convey structured data that is common in business, and without real-time updates, static text results lose relevance the moment they’re generated.

Structured data is easier to digest when users can filter, sort, and visualize it—that is why graphical user interfaces (GUIs) excel at presenting structured data and guiding users through complex workflows. But GUIs are expensive to build and rigid, forcing generic, one-size-fits-all solutions that struggle to provide the fluid, tailored experiences users now demand.

Text is flexible but limited; GUIs are robust but rigid. Generative UI is the unmet need between them and the new frontier for business software.

From static dashboards to dynamic workspaces

Imagine a procurement manager investigating a supply chain disruption. Instead of navigating five different applications and manually cross-referencing data, she asks: “Show me the suppliers at risk in Southeast Asia and model alternative sourcing scenarios.”

This request sets agents to work behind the scenes. They gather and analyze live data, simulate outcomes, and calculate the projected impact of every alternative. Execution agents are also pre-positioned and ready to act on command.

The user doesn’t have to deal with any of this complexity. For them, a dynamic interface materializes in seconds—not a generic dashboard, but a purpose-built mission control center. Interactive maps highlight affected regions and supply chain graphs update in real time. As the user tweaks parameters, risk scores adjust instantly. Embedded controls stand ready to trigger purchase orders or notify suppliers, enabling the user to decide and execute. Collaboration is simplified; colleagues can join a living workspace: no briefing decks, no context-setting calls.

This is the future: a business suite where a user’s intent defines their interface and their decisions drive action. To get there, we are combining Joule and Joule Agents with our vision for generative UI. This is not just about on-demand dashboards; it’s about steering a business with interfaces that adapt to each user’s role, context, and tasks. This is “vibe coding” for enterprise operations: shifting focus from syntax to intent.

We are entering an era where AI constructs UIs on the fly, allowing users to engage with them immediately. Generative UI marks the transition from static software suites to “batch size 1” applications that act like ephemeral control centers tailored to a specific problem.

Challenges and SAP’s answers

Delivering an intent-driven business suite at enterprise scale requires addressing complex realities. We are building generative UI because we understand its promise and its perils—and we have unique assets to bridge that gap.

Accuracy

Large language models (LLMs) can produce plausible but incorrect outputs, or “hallucinate.” A consumer chatbot that hallucinates a movie plot is tolerable; a procurement system that misrepresents supplier terms has real consequences. Our generative UI approach addresses this by visualizing data directly from systems of record with transparent lineage. Grounding the UI in real-time, trusted data is our first defense against inaccuracy.

Trust

If every interface is generated on the fly, how do users know it is reliable? Trust is built on consistency and predictability. Our generative UI is built on the familiar and proven architectural grammar of SAP Fiori for lists, dashboards, and workflows. The content is bespoke and the structure is consistent and familiar, so users can always judge and adjust with confidence.

Complexity

Enterprise systems are sophisticated and unique. They are built over decades, encoding massive domain knowledge and business logic. Generative UI builds on Joule’s existing integration and orchestration capabilities, which already connect to systems across a landscape and coordinate agents to execute complex workflows. Generative UI leverages this foundation, letting users interact with deeply integrated processes through simple interfaces while Joule handles the orchestration underneath.

Why this matters now

The expectations set by consumer AI are real, and the gap between what employees experience at home and what they use at work is widening.

The future of enterprise software isn’t chatbots bolted onto legacy screens. It’s bespoke mission control—interfaces that materialize around a user’s intent, grounded in live data, executed by agents, and governed by the user.

With that, we’re reimagining how work gets done.

Jonathan von Rueden is chief AI officer of SAP SE.