Finance as the Conductor: SAP Introduces AI Innovation at SAP Connect

Finance professionals have proven their resilience through volatility, from shifting interest rates to evolving regulatory landscapes, putting intense pressure on leaders to make faster and smarter decisions.

Deep research AI and role-based assistants, coupled with SAP Business Suite innovations, take efficiency to new heights

However, the pace of change has made traditional approaches, like best-of-breed point solutions, no longer sufficient to help finance teams keep up.

That is why the future of finance technology should act as an orchestra, not disjointed soloists.

Finance teams require a unified experience where applications, data, and AI work seamlessly together. With SAP Business Suite, these elements come together as one orchestra, enabling finance to operate in harmony and deliver outcomes that point solutions alone cannot achieve. This means not only faster close and stronger liquidity, but also tighter compliance and credible plans that hold up under change.

To strengthen collaboration across finance and bring innovation to the CFO’s office, SAP unveiled Joule’s next stage as the AI force at the center of SAP Business Suite’s value creation. A new generation of role-aware assistants in Joule are designed to partner with people in their specific business roles by tapping into the right agents behind the scenes for the job. For finance professionals, SAP introduced the next round of automation support using agentic AI.

SAP is embedding AI-powered reasoning directly into finance processes to automate routine work and elevate the strategic role of finance with the following new agents:

  • The Accruals Agent will calculate accruals and deferrals based on system data and present the accountant with a proposal for review, along with a detailed explanation of the calculation logic.
  • The Cash Management Agent will automate daily bank statement reconciliation tasks and recommend opportunities for optimization.
  • The International Trade Classification Agent will reason over product characteristics and trade regulations and act to classify goods for international shipping, recommending customs tariff numbers and commodity codes

By bringing automation to critical but repetitive finance processes, these agents underscore SAP’s commitment to equipping the office of the CFO with AI-driven innovation that strengthens resilience in an increasingly complex business environment.

Finance as the conductor of the enterprise

The role of the CFO has expanded far beyond closing the books or reporting quarterly earnings. Today, finance teams are expected to bring together data, processes, and people from the entire business to enable seamless collaboration.

With SAP’s AI-first, suite-first approach, applications and data flow seamlessly, allowing finance leaders to coordinate business operations with confidence. This unified foundation ensures that insights are not siloed, but instead shared across the enterprise, enabling faster and smarter decisions.

Take working capital management, one of the biggest pressure points for finance leaders: A recent Economist Impact survey of 480 CFOs found confidence levels were strong in almost all areas, including revenue, profit, and customer retention, but only 36 percent felt confident in their ability to achieve working capital targets. SAP Business Suite can help organizations meet their targets by automating manual work and enabling actionable decisions — all by leveraging dynamic, autonomous, and action-oriented solutions in SAP Business Suite.

When an organization manages incoming receivables, outgoing payables, as well as cash and inventory within SAP, that connected experience creates data that provides real-time visibility into liquidity through SAP Business Data Cloud.  That data fuels SAP Business AI to analyze situations, recommend actions, and even resolve issues like disputed invoices automatically, which would otherwise slow the cash collection process. And with the integration of Joule and intelligent agents, SAP Business AI not only automates, it senses, reasons, orchestrates, and acts — turning insights into outcomes that free capacity and accelerate the business.

As AI agents take on more of the behind-the-scenes work, finance professionals can step fully into their role as the conductor of the enterprise. They can guide strategy with foresight, aligning every function in harmony and shaping outcomes that extend far beyond revenue or cost goals.

CFOs and their teams can then move beyond reactive decision-making toward shaping strategy in real time. This will position their office as a driver of growth, resilience, and innovation.

Looking ahead

SAP is laying the foundation for a new era of autonomous finance, where routine processes are automated, insights are delivered in real time, and finance teams are empowered to focus on strategy and growth.

These innovations mark just the beginning of SAP’s commitment to helping businesses navigate an increasingly complex financial landscape with agility, intelligence, and confidence.


Lawrence Martin is chief product officer and head of Public Cloud Engineering at SAP.
David Imbert is head of Finance Product Marketing at SAP.

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The Next Wave of Intelligent Applications in SAP Business Data Cloud


New intelligent applications and open ecosystem
partnerships turn insights into action across the enterprise


As enterprises move toward an AI-driven future, the role of data has never been more critical. Yet much of that data remains locked in silos — spread across teams, clouds, and legacy systems.

Deep research AI and role-based assistants, coupled with SAP Business Suite innovations, take efficiency to new heights

This fragmentation creates a “context gap,” where information is technically available but disconnected from the business meaning that makes it actionable. For example, sales and marketing teams may share a common view of pipeline, but without linking it to product feedback or process bottlenecks, AI models trained on that data miss the full business context. The result is inconsistent insights, slower decision-making, and a stalled cycle of AI, data, and applications. 

SAP Business Data Cloud closes this gap. By harmonizing enterprise data wherever it resides and preserving its business context, it provides the foundation for intelligent applications and reliable AI.

At SAP Connect, SAP is bringing this vision to life with the next wave of innovations: SAP Business Data Cloud Intelligent Applications 

Four new intelligent applications in preview

Building on the momentum for intelligent applications established at SAP Sapphire, SAP is now opening a restricted public preview of four intelligent applications designed to transform decision-making across finance, procurement, supply chain, and revenue operations.

This preview offers customers an exclusive opportunity to experience the next wave of innovation in SAP Business Data Cloud before general availability. By participating, you’ll gain early access to Finance Intelligence, Spend Intelligence, Supply Chain Intelligence, and Revenue Intelligence, and provide valuable feedback that will help shape the future of these solutions. 

To request access, please visit the preview link above, select the applications you are most interested in, and our product team will follow up directly to finalize your registration and guide you through getting started.

Finance Intelligence gives CFOs and finance teams real-time AI-powered analysis of liquidity by harmonizing SAP and third-party data and suggesting key actions to implement. Leaders can forecast cash flow instantly as well as detect liquidity risks using AI trained on live receivables and payables with external credit data such as Moody’s for richer customer risk assessment. With Joule and generative AI agents automating routine finance tasks, finance teams can shift their focus from reporting on the past to actively steering the future. 

Spend Intelligence provides organizations with a single, comprehensive view of enriched and classified spend data. Built-in AI and advanced analytics uncover patterns, anomalies, and opportunities for cost savings, while collaborative features connect finance, procurement, HR, and supply chain teams for better alignment. Through native integration with SAP source-to-pay solutions, spend data continuously informs operational workflows, improving decision-making, enhancing control, and strengthening enterprise resilience. 

Supply Chain Intelligence equips operations leaders with the context to make faster, more impactful decisions. By combining SAP data with external signals such as weather, regulatory updates, and market shifts — along with insights from millions of partners in SAP Business Network — businesses can leverage the power of AI to understand and take action on key supply chain issues and drive optimization. This comprehensive intelligence helps anticipate disruptions, evaluate supplier risks, and orchestrate decisions seamlessly from prediction to execution, ensuring more resilient and agile operations. 

Revenue Intelligence transforms fragmented customer touchpoints into unified, actionable insights. By linking individual customer behaviors with enterprise-wide operations, it helps revenue leaders see which accounts to prioritize, when to intervene, and how to optimize customer investments. Unlike CRM-only tools, Revenue Intelligence connects front-office engagement to back-office execution, empowering organizations to maximize growth opportunities and strengthen customer relationships with a complete view of the business context.

SAP Business Data Cloud Connect

Beyond intelligent applications, SAP is strengthening its open data ecosystem with SAP Business Data Cloud Connect, giving customers unprecedented flexibility to work with trusted data wherever it resides. With secure, zero-copy sharing, customers can bring SAP data products directly into their existing data platforms, eliminating duplication, reducing transformation efforts, and extending the reach of SAP’s business data fabric.

The first partners adopting this capability include Databricks (generally available) and Google (now in public preview), enabling real-time, bi-directional access to semantically rich SAP data products in environments customers already use.

With SAP Business Data Cloud Connect for Databricks now generally available, organizations can accelerate analytics and AI initiatives with greater speed, less friction, and full confidence in the integrity of their data.

SAP is committed to rapidly expanding this partner ecosystem so that, no matter where enterprise data resides, customers can connect it with trust, governance, and business context. 

Why it matters

Together, these announcements reflect SAP’s vision for the intelligent enterprise — where applications don’t just analyze, but act. By combining trusted data, open connectivity, and embedded AI, enterprises can shorten decision cycles, reduce integration complexity, and align intelligence directly with business outcomes.

For organizations operating across hybrid environments and complex data landscapes, these innovations make it easier than ever to turn insights into action and deliver measurable impact.

This week at SAP Connect, customers can experience this vision firsthand through live demos, real-world case studies, and discussions with SAP leaders, partners, and peers. It’s an opportunity to see how SAP Business Data Cloud is redefining decision-making today and shaping the future of the intelligent enterprise.


Irfan Khan is president and chief product officer for SAP Data and Analytics.

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Connecting the Dots: How SAP BTP Powers AI and the Business Suite

The first touchpoint with SAP for many people is its applications, such as SAP Cloud ERP, SAP Ariba, SAP Customer Experience, or SAP SuccessFactors.

Deep research AI and role-based assistants, coupled with SAP Business Suite innovations, take efficiency to new heights

Each SAP software solution delivers strong value, helping teams excel in their specific domain. Yet the true strength of SAP emerges when these applications operate across the enterprise; when finance decisions are informed by procurement data in real time or when workforce insights from HR directly shape supply chain planning.

That is why SAP Business Suite exists: a portfolio of applications, data, and AI working together to cover the full spectrum of business operations. At the heart of SAP Business Suite is SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), the technology platform that connects it all.

Infographic: SAP BTP

SAP BTP is a platform engineered to integrate, automate, extend, and build AI-powered business applications and processes across your enterprise.

SAP BTP is also how we supercharge AI. On its own, AI can generate outputs that look impressive, but without business context, they often lack real-world relevance. SAP BTP solves this by bringing together systems, ensuring consistent data, and automating processes across the enterprise. This means AI doesn’t operate in isolation; it understands the relationships between finance, supply chain, HR, procurement, and more.

That connection is what turns AI from theory into practice. When AI is trained on accurate, well-structured data and tied directly to business processes, it can deliver recommendations that people trust and use to make smarter decisions. The result is an innovation flywheel, where teams and AI continually become smarter, faster, and more impactful across the enterprise.

Three-column infographic: Applications, Data, AI

New SAP applications built on SAP BTP

This week at SAP Connect, we talked about the ways in which SAP BTP enables our customers and partners to tap into the innovation flywheel. We also demonstrated how SAP is using SAP BTP as its core application development platform with the release of three new high scale enterprise applications powered by SAP BTP (SAP Build).

  • SAP rolled out the next generation of SAP Ariba solutions for source-to-pay. New capabilities will help procurement professionals improve cost savings, ensure compliance, and build supply chain resilience by automating and supporting key processes such as buying, sourcing, supplier management, contracts, and invoicing. SAP Ariba solutions are now built on SAP BTP, making it easier to integrate them with SAP Business Suite, the SAP ERP application, and third-party ERP systems using open APIs.
  • SAP introduced SAP Supply Chain Orchestration. Built on SAP BTP, SAP Supply Chain Orchestration can leverage data from SAP Business Network and the SAP Business Data Cloud solution, expanding insights across every tier of the supply chain. SAP Supply Chain Orchestration is designed to empower customers with one synchronized supply chain system that will help enhance risk detection, deliver actionable insights, and enable coordinated responses across supply chains. An intelligent impact analysis capability will help manage upstream supply chain risks and disruptions, and both external and internal supply chain signals will be contextualized into prioritized actions. The solution will also provide multi-tier supply chain insights that extend beyond traditional boundaries.
  • SAP Business Network now runs on SAP BTP, giving customers a technical foundation that enables faster speeds, easier integration, collaboration at scale, and continuous innovation. This will enhance customers’ existing investment in SAP Business Network, adding value without disruption.

Lowering barriers with simplified licensing and packaging

SAP is committed to making it easier than ever for customers to adopt, experiment, and scale new innovation. We’re continuously simplifying access to SAP BTP and SAP Business Suite, ensuring that every organization, no matter its size or technical maturity, can take advantage of the latest advances in AI, automation, and data connectivity.

Earlier this year, we simplified SAP Build pricing model and included its capabilities in all SAP Business Suite packages, giving customers a frictionless way to jumpstart their development without needing to purchase additional licenses. Then we introduced a free SAP Build license for partners, allowing solutions to be tested, demoed, developed, and then sold on the SAP Store. Most recently, we unified the SAP Build licensing model, which now includes Joule for Developers and Joule Studio, and made it available to all existing SAP BTP Enterprise Agreement customers.

From streamlined commercial offerings and consumption models to guided innovation paths through RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP, our goal is clear: lower the barrier to innovation so every customer can turn great ideas into business outcomes faster.

Real-world results: Customers delivering value with SAP BTP

To get inspired, here are just a few examples of SAP BTP in action with customers:

  • 57,000 hours saved annually: Accenture developed an intelligent virtual assistant for financial leaders by combining human expertise, SAP solutions, and AI technologies. This AI assistant, built on SAP BTP, streamlines the creation of financial narratives and provides live alerts on key financial metrics, augmenting decision-making in real time. The result is 57,000 hours saved of what was manual work.
  • 100,000 applications processed: City of Hamburg launched a financial aid application platform in just two weeks using SAP BTP, SAP AI Services, and other solutions. This generative AI-enabled platform efficiently processed nearly 100,000 subsidy applications during an energy crisis, showcasing agile innovation with SAP’s AI and platform tools.
  • 95% improvement in search results: Uniper built a “Perfect Purchase Requisition” app, and extended SAP Ariba, using SAP Build Work Zone and SAP BTP’s generative AI capabilities with SAP HANA Cloud vector engine. This AI-powered app automatically validates and corrects purchase requisitions, speeding up procurement cycles and improving data quality before orders go out. The application has significantly reduced the time and effort buyers spend finding the correct products, with 95 percent of searches successful on the first attempt.
  • 10,000 orders analyzed annually: AMD built a “GenAI Supply Chain Troubleshooter” on SAP BTP to simplify complex supply chain interactions. This AI assistant reduced issue resolution time and costs by 90 percent, saving 3,120 hours of staff effort annually, and demonstrates how generative AI can dramatically streamline supply chain management.
  • AU$1+ million saved annually: SA Power Networks revolutionized its operations with generative AI and SAP BTP. Custom apps have delivered rapid insights to field crews, while Joule’s natural language interaction with SAP SuccessFactors has saved 75 hours on average. Leveraging 50 years of asset history, they ensure safe operations, saving over AU$1 million annually and achieving a 99 percent success rate in identifying poles unlikely to corrode.

Ready to start? Explore SAP BTP resources

Thanks to everyone who attended SAP Connect virtually and in-person in Las Vegas! For those who couldn’t attend live, I recommend reading the Innovation Guide, checking out the full list of on-demand sessions, and watching the executive keynote delivered by Muhammad Alam.

To get started today, visit sap.com/btp to start a free trial and explore use cases.


Bharat Sandhu is chief marketing officer for SAP Business Technology Platform.

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Unprecedented Possibilities: Powering People and Business Connection with New SAP SuccessFactors Innovations

The future of work isn’t inching forward, it’s rapidly accelerating. AI is transforming productivity, agentic systems are reshaping decision-making, and skills-first strategies are redefining how organizations grow.

Deep research AI and role-based assistants, coupled with SAP Business Suite innovations, take efficiency to new heights

According to new research from SAP, employees using AI are saving 75 minutes a day — time that’s being reinvested into innovation, connection, and impact. 

But with economic volatility, shifting regulations, and a global skills crunch, organizations face a critical challenge: how to connect their people and their business in ways that drive agility, resilience, and growth. This isn’t just a moment of change; it’s a moment of unprecedented possibilities.

Unlocking new possibilities with SAP SuccessFactors

SAP SuccessFactors is powering that transformation with trusted intelligence, operational strength, and innovations that turn disruption into advantage. With over 10,000 customers worldwide, we are privileged to work with the world’s leading brands and help them guide their people and their organizations through change. 

The SAP SuccessFactors HCM suite is a robust offering that connects all the pieces for an organization’s people strategy — from core HR and payroll, to talent acquisition and talent management, to people analytics, and beyond. SAP Business AI is infused across our HCM suite, and SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) enables our customers to expand and extend to meet their needs. 

We are constantly investing in our solutions based on market signals, ensuring our customers have the tools they need to stay at the forefront of innovation. 

Today at Success Connect at SAP Connect in Las Vegas, we announced the latest innovations designed to elevate the employee experience, optimize operations, and deliver actionable workforce insights. 

Elevating the employee experience  

New Joule Agents  

Agentic AI is redefining the employee experience and transforming the way work gets done by automating routine tasks, accelerating decision-making, and unlocking new levels of productivity. Joule, SAP’s AI copilot, is embedded into enterprise-wide applications to deliver real-time intelligence and automation through a simple conversational interface.  

Joule currently supports 80 percent of the most-used tasks in SAP systems, and we are continuously expanding its capabilities. Joule is available in 11 languages, and next month the first HR-focused Joule Agent — the Performance and Goals Agent — will be generally available, with many more to follow. This agent is designed to empower managers to lead high-impact performance conversations by providing tailored insights, goal progress updates, and personalized talking points.

We’ll continue to release new agents that will continue to work behind the scenes to make managers, employees, and HR teams more efficient. Today, we announced the next four agents, available in SAP SuccessFactors in the first half of 2026: 

  • The Career and Talent Development Agent, which automates succession planning and helps managers identify and develop future leaders
  • The HR Service Agent, which serves as a direct point of contact for employees and reduces the amount of time HR staff spend answering routine questions
  • The Payroll Agent, which helps employees better understand their pay by combining paycheck details with time data, enabling intelligent “explain pay” scenarios such as highlighting unexpected overtime and suggesting follow-up actions
  • The People Intelligence Agent, which connects the People Intelligence Insight application in SAP Business Data Cloud with Joule and SAP SuccessFactors, allowing managers and HR teams to ask questions in their own words and receive intuitive, accessible workforce analytics

Introducing the workforce knowledge network

Building on these new capabilities, we are also introducing a workforce knowledge network, a first-of-its-kind integration that brings third-party content from industry experts directly into Joule, delivering enhanced insights for employees.  This is a major step forward in enabling agent-to-agent interaction in order to deliver the most relevant information in one seamless experience.

Content from leading HCM industry experts from G-P (Globalization Partners) and The Josh Bersin Company will flow directly into Joule. These integrations allow Joule to ingest third-party content and interact with various agents so employees can receive guidance that is grounded in real-world insights and trusted research.

For example, HR leaders can access G-P Gia, an HR agent developed by G-P, directly within Joule, providing access to expert global employment guidance. Additionally, they can ask Joule, “What are best practices for hiring engineers in a high-cost location?” and Joule can respond with research-backed insights and recommendations provided by Galileo, a trained AI agent developed by The Josh Bersin Company, with over 6,000 users across more than 800 companies.

“Joule offers a revolutionary technology to speed and simplify the lives of every business person,” said Josh Bersin, CEO of The Josh Bersin Company. “We are very excited to connect Galileo, a leading AI agent for HR, to all SAP users and give them deep insights into all their human capital decisions.” 

Optimizing Operations

Innovations in Core HR

Operational strength is the backbone of every great employee experience; it enables scale, consistency, and confidence, especially in times of change. That is why we continue to invest deeply in core HR.

With localization support across 104 countries and usage in 179, SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central remains the industry’s most trusted foundation for global HR operations. And today we have announced that it’s getting even stronger:

  • New SAP SuccessFactors Workforce Scheduling
    Early adopter January 2026
    This new solution enables shift planners and supervisors in manufacturing and production to create smarter schedules aligned with real-time business demand and required skills, reducing administrative burden, helping to prevent costly overstaffing and understaffing, and maintaining compliance.
  • New enhanced time-off capabilities in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central
    Generally available next month
    This enhancement allows our customers to meet country-specific and complex leave regulations in markets including but not limited to Australia, Germany, and the U.S., helping them stay compliant while simplifying processes for managers and employees.
  • SAP SuccessFactors Enterprise Service Management
    Generally available now
    Announced earlier this year, our new HR service delivery solution extends the power of core HR by automating workflows, streamlining service requests, and freeing HR teams to focus on high-value, strategic work.

Delivering best-in-class insights

People Intelligence

Operational excellence lays the groundwork, but true transformation happens when data becomes insight. That is where People Intelligence in SAP Business Data Cloud comes in. Initial capabilities in People Intelligence announced at SAP Sapphire in 2025 are now generally available. People Intelligence transforms people, skills, and business data into actionable, AI-driven insights that help HR and leaders make better, more strategic decisions for the business and its people.  

At Success Connect, we unveiled additional prebuilt insights for recruiting, learning, succession, career development planning, and performance and goals management. People Intelligence continues to expand, with more prebuilt insights for rewards and recognition, benefits, time management, and onboarding planned for May 2026. 

SmartRecruiters

SAP is also advancing the way organizations attract, recruit, and hire top talent. Last month, we acquired SmartRecruiters to build the future of AI-driven talent acquisition. At Success Connect, we showcased how this move strengthens our vision. By combining the scale of SAP SuccessFactors, the power of SAP Business AI, and the expertise of SmartRecruiters, we’re delivering an intelligent, end-to-end global hiring solution that simplifies recruiting and ensures every hire is aligned to business and workforce goals.

Where innovation meets impact 

Innovation in HR has entered a new era that is defined by connection. By uniting people, processes, and intelligence, organizations can move beyond incremental change to unlock unprecedented possibilities for impact, agility, and growth. With continuous advancements in AI, a trusted global foundation, and intelligence-driven insights, SAP SuccessFactors is helping organizations meet today’s challenges head-on and shape the future of work with confidence.


To catch our Success Connect keynote replay and learn more about the latest innovations in SAP SuccessFactors, register for SAP Connect Virtual on October 9.


Dan Beck is general manager and chief product officer for SAP SuccessFactors.

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SAP Launches Innovative Updates for Supply Chain Management

Disruption has been the defining backdrop of global supply chains. Over the past decade, organizations have demonstrated remarkable resilience — navigating a global pandemic, shifting trade policies, and geopolitical conflicts.

Deep research AI and role-based assistants, coupled with SAP Business Suite innovations, take efficiency to new heights

At the same time, there is a huge opportunity to entirely re-think supply chains with AI and agentic workflows as the powerful transformation agents of the next decade. The lesson is clear: companies that invest in AI-driven applications and reliable data and re-think processes maintain continuity and customer trust, while others risk prolonged shocks, lower service levels, increased cost, and lost revenue.

Today at Supply Chain Connect at SAP Connect, we are building on the phenomenal momentum of AI-driven supply chain transformations with innovations designed to help supply chain leaders not just endure disruption, but transform it into an opportunity for resilience and growth.

Introducing SAP Supply Chain Orchestration

In today’s dynamic market, foresight and a reduced time-to-recover are everything. Business leaders must know where their products are, which suppliers or sub-suppliers are at risk, and how to respond with confidence. Yet, visibility gaps often leave organizations blindsided.

SAP Supply Chain Orchestration is a new AI-centric solution built to detect potential disruptions early, contextualize risk to a company’s unique supply chain configuration, apply intelligent impact analysis, and trigger AI-driven actions across planning, logistics, procurement, and manufacturing. Soon, supply chain stakeholders will be supported by powerful Joule assistants that leverage AI agents to strengthen supplier compliance, increase customer service, and reduce revenue exposure.

What sets SAP Supply Chain Orchestration apart is its foundation on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). The solution integrates data from SAP Business Network and SAP Business Data Cloud, providing a comprehensive view across every tier of the supply chain. These multi-tier insights help turn external and internal risk signals into prioritized actions, boosting operational efficiency, compliance, and customer satisfaction.

Set to be available in the first half of 2026, SAP Supply Chain Orchestration is the next step toward a future where businesses can anticipate global shifts before they escalate with a severe business impact.

Advanced AI capabilities and unified scenario simulations optimize supply chain planning

SAP is enabling its customers to reimagine supply chain planning to become faster, smarter, and more connected with SAP Integrated Business Planning (SAP IBP). This evolution of the product combines intelligent automation, a harmonized data model, and AI-driven capabilities to enhance forecasting, streamline processes, and help planners focus on critical decision making.

A harmonized planning area now supports both time-series and order-based planning, allowing users to move seamlessly among strategic, tactical, and operational levels, which ultimately enables seamless telescopic planning. New harmonized scenario simulations reveal the impact of alerts and risks to orders across all planning horizons. Embedded AI strengthens forecasting and inventory management, while characteristic-based planning adds right-fidelity supply planning to optimize stock and capacity matching for critical industries such as fashion retail, high-tech, life sciences, or consumer products.

The new Configurable Planner Workspace provides a unified interface where planners can monitor performance, simulate scenarios, and act immediately — guided by Joule, SAP’s copilot, which delivers contextual assistance and actionable insights from forecasts, supply plans, and multi-echelon inventory.

AI capabilities are currently in beta mode and planned for general availability in Q2 2026, while all other enhancements are now generally available.

New Joule Agents accelerate decisions and automation across the supply chain

SAP introduces three new Joule Agents for supply chain management, designed to automate critical, time-consuming tasks and empower teams to focus on strategic decision-making. These agents embed AI-native automation directly into SAP Cloud ERP, SAP Cloud ERP Private, and SAP Business Network workflows, reducing manual effort and minimizing errors.

  • Production Planning and Operations Agent: Automates prerequisite checks for releasing production orders, validates material, capacity, and scheduling, and can recommend workarounds or release orders instantly – shortening order-to-delivery cycles and reducing costs. General availability is planned for Q1 2026.
  • Change Record Management Agent: Supports product managers and engineers by reasoning over problem reports and change requests, recommending next steps, and initiating changes, which improves governance, traceability, and decision speed. General availability is planned for Q2 2026.
  • Supplier Onboarding Agent: Streamlines onboarding in SAP Business Network by reasoning over supplier details, orchestrating invitations, validating data, and handling escalations, which enables procurement teams to scale faster while focusing on strategic supplier development.

With these agents, SAP is embedding intelligence deeper into day-to-day supply chain workflows, accelerating decisions where they matter most.

Upgrading SAP Business Network to meet customer needs

Global commerce is more interconnected than ever, but too many organizations still operate with fragmented procurement and logistics processes. SAP is introducing upgrades to SAP Business Network, the world’s largest B2B platform, facilitating over US$6.3 trillion in annual commerce across 190 countries.

  • Availability on SAP BTP: SAP Business Network now runs on SAP BTP, providing a modern data foundation and enabling organizations to coordinate deals at scale. It connects easily across SAP and third-party systems, introduces a unified global directory with guided onboarding, and offers workflow customization through SAP Build. Joule integration will be available in January 2026, bringing embedded AI to analytics, automation, and approvals across the network.
  • Network-centric integration across the business suite: Rolling out later this year, SAP Business Network will support end-to-end value streams with SAP Cloud ERP, SAP Ariba, SAP Fieldglass, and SAP Transportation Management. This will accelerate dispute resolution, improve emissions tracking, and enable AI-assisted navigation.
  • Simplified supplier data access: By Q4 2025, users will be able to search for suppliers directly from their ERP interface, eliminating manual onboarding. Buyers will gain faster access to new vendors, reducing activation costs and expanding visibility.

Together, these innovations enhance SAP Business Network with intelligence, reach, and usability — delivering embedded AI, seamless business suite integration, and ERP-native supplier discovery.

SAP launches new logistics management solution

SAP is announcing SAP Logistics Management, a new cloud-native solution designed to complement operations of large distribution centers with capabilities to support smaller, local, and regional warehouses. This will help establish multi-tier distribution networks that strengthen resilience and increase delivery speed.

Fully connected to SAP Cloud ERP Private and SAP Business Network for Logistics, the solution centralizes inventory, shipments, and partner coordination. Unlike standalone tools, it extends ERP capabilities directly to satellite warehouses, drastically reducing manual tasks and ensuring consistency across networks.

Built-in AI capabilities guide operational decisions, eliminating silos and strengthening collaboration across logistics ecosystems. SAP Logistics Management will be available in Q1 2026.

Doehler, a global producer of technology-driven natural ingredients for the food, beverage, and nutrition industry, will leverage the solution in its warehouses to manage its production sites, samples and spare parts.

“SAP Logistics Management is set to deliver lean process automation and accelerated transformation for most of our more than 50 production sites, sampling operations and technical warehouses,” said Dr. Michael Merget, Chief Operating Officer of Doehler Group. “We see its powerful, integrated AI capabilities not as an add-on, but as the core intelligence that will define the future of our logistics.”

Looking ahead

Resilient, intelligent, and collaborative supply chains are no longer aspirations — they are necessities. Together, these innovations reflect SAP’s vision for a fully orchestrated supply chain. The next generation of supply chain technology will empower businesses to detect disruptions early, harness data at scale, and consistently exceed customer expectations. By leading with intelligence and foresight, companies can transform crises into opportunities and position themselves to thrive in a world defined by uncertainty.

For more details on all announcements made this week, please refer to the SAP Connect Innovation Guide.


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

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SAP Customer Experience Innovations Drive Profitable Growth

This week at SAP Connect, SAP unveiled the latest innovations designed to help companies build stronger, more meaningful relationships with their customers. In today’s world, customers expect intelligence, precision, and trust at every step of their journey.

Deep research AI and role-based assistants, coupled with SAP Business Suite innovations, take efficiency to new heights

SAP’s latest customer experience solutions are built to deliver on these expectations, empowering organizations to earn loyalty, drive growth, and create seamless, connected experiences.

In today’s market, loyalty and retention are the twin engines of repeatable business, the lifeblood of every organization. Earning and keeping customer trust has always been hard-won, but the bar is higher than ever. Recent findings from the SAP Emarsys Customer Loyalty Index show a five-point drop in “true loyalty,” customers who return without incentives. Only 35 percent of B2B customers reach strategic loyalty, defined as repeat purchases and long-term engagement. And nearly one-third of customers are lost to fragmented experiences. Brands now face a new reality: building lasting loyalty requires understanding customers and delivering consistent, connected experiences across every touchpoint.

Meeting the loyalty challenge: SAP Engagement Cloud and SAP Customer Loyalty Management

To help customers meet this challenge, SAP has created two powerful solutions: SAP Engagement Cloud and SAP Customer Loyalty Management.

Yesterday at SAP Connect 2025, SAP Executive Board Member Muhammad Alam shared the vision for SAP Engagement Cloud as the next evolution in enterprise engagement. Built on SAP Business Data Cloud and the SAP CX suite of applications, it orchestrates engagement across the enterprise: customers, suppliers, employees, and more.

It also connects every function — finance, HR, marketing, and service –– and uses AI to turn business data into actions that drive outcomes: better delivery, faster service, and stronger loyalty. SAP Engagement Cloud will unify real-time interactions across marketing, commerce, sales, and service. By connecting every customer touchpoint to operational data such as logistics, finance, and supply chain, organizations can deliver accurate offers, real-time service, and personalized experiences at scale. This is especially important as only 18 percent of B2B customers reach strategic loyalty, according to the SAP Emarsys Customer Loyalty Index.

With embedded AI and Joule, SAP Engagement Cloud automates decisions, accelerates campaigns, and supports multi-brand, multi-region operations, empowering teams to deliver consistent, predictive, and unified customer experiences from day one.

The solution will be beta in November 2025 and is expected to be generally available in the first quarter of 2026, with an initial focus on customer experience.

Product screenshot: SAP Engagement Cloud
SAP Engagement Cloud

SAP Customer Loyalty Management empowers teams to deliver personalized experiences at scale by giving every customer a single loyalty profile, no matter the brand, region, or partner. With loyalty data unified and natively integrated into SAP Private Cloud ERP and SAP Business Suite, teams can instantly monitor promotions, track reward usage, and understand financial impact in real time. This actionable insight feeds directly into planning, forecasting, and supply chain decisions, enabling businesses to adapt quickly and serve customers better.

Loyalty isn’t a separate marketing project, it’s woven into daily business operations. By centralizing loyalty data, SAP Customer Loyalty Management helps organizations understand each customer deeply and deliver consistent, connected experiences across every touchpoint.

The solution will be available Q4 2025.

Product screenshot: SAP Customer Loyalty Management
SAP Customer Loyalty Management

AI and intelligence: the next imperative

At SAP Connect, we introduced how Joule, SAP’s AI copilot, is transforming customer experience by embedding intelligence directly into SAP Business Suite. Joule is not another layer, it’s built into the foundation, enabling smarter decisions and faster execution across every customer moment.

AI assistants in Joule bring role-based intelligence to customer-facing teams across service, sales, marketing, and commerce. Each assistant is tailored to the user’s role and business context, coordinating a network of AI assistants within Joule to automate tasks like resolving cases, chasing invoices, optimizing catalogs, and surfacing insights. This orchestration enables teams to focus on driving outcomes rather than managing operations.

For instance, Digital Service Agent delivers fast, multilingual support by reasoning over customer context and company knowledge. It provides accurate answers, escalates when needed, and continuously improves, reducing manual workload and enhancing customer satisfaction. This is available now.

Product screenshot: Digital Service Agent
Digital Service Agent

Deep research in Joule

With deep research in Joule, account planning moves beyond quick answers, delivering deep, strategic research and analysis in a single, connected experience. By tapping into SAP data, external intelligence, and trusted resources, users get richer insights for any business need.

Sales leaders and chief revenue officers can use the new account planning that leverages deep research in Joule to compress weeks of manual work into days. It synthesizes customer history, identifies key drivers, and drafts account plans, giving sales teams a complete, real-time view of every relationship.

Deep research in Joule will be available in beta December 2025.

Product screenshot: Account Planning Deep Research
Account Planning Deep Research

Intelligent applications for customer experience

SAP Business AI also powers intelligent applications that help businesses turn data into action:

  • Revenue Intelligence brings together data from CRM, commerce, and ERP to surface pipeline risks, customer health, and sales performance. Sales leaders and chief revenue officers gain a unified, real-time view to strengthen pipelines, improve win rates, and accelerate profitable growth.
  • Consumer Products Intelligence enables manufacturers and consumer packaged goods companies to optimize trade promotions and customer-facing offers. Integrated with SAP Integrated Business Planning and SAP Analytics Cloud, it uses real-time data from sales, supply chain, and production to analyze margins, monitor performance, and support financial planning, ensuring CX strategies are aligned with operational realities.

These innovations are tightly integrated with SAP Business Suite, ensuring every CX insight is grounded in real-time, harmonized data. They are currently in restricted private preview and expected to be generally available in H1 2026.

Adoption that drives value

Building on the Customer Loyalty Index findings about the importance of connected experiences, seamless, guided adoption is essential to delivering value. That is why WalkMe is now embedded across all SAP Customer Experience solutions.

WalkMe is a digital adoption platform that provides real-time, role-based guidance – right inside SAP interfaces. No IT tickets required. Teams get help in the flow of work, with step-by-step instructions that minimize onboarding time and reduce errors. Leaders gain instant visibility into where users struggle, so they can address friction and accelerate adoption.

The path forward

Loyalty is evolving, and so are we. Our priority is to help brands earn trust and adapt quickly.

The SAP Customer Experience innovations introduced at SAP Connect are designed for this challenge. They connect engagement with execution through solutions like SAP Engagement Cloud, Revenue Intelligence, and SAP Customer Loyalty Management; turn intelligence into action with embedded AI and automation; and give teams unified, real-time data to deliver measurable results and stay ahead in a rapidly changing market.


See how your business measures up in the Customer Loyalty Index and the Buyer Loyalty Index. Explore SAP CX content at SAP Connect here.


Balaji Balasubramanian is president and chief product officer for SAP Customer Experience.

SAP Connect: Read the latest news, stories, and coverage from the event

SAP Business Suite Unites AI, Data and Applications to Power the Next Generation of Enterprise Transformation


SAP reimagines enterprise AI with role-based assistants in
Joule that coordinate agents across lines of business


LAS VEGAS — At its inaugural SAP Connect event, SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) showcases how the integration of AI, data and applications creates unparalleled business value.

Deep research AI and role-based assistants, coupled with SAP Business Suite innovations, take efficiency to new heights

These breakthroughs – including a new network of role-based assistants in Joule that partner with humans to elevate performance, an expanding data ecosystem that drives deeper insights and supply chain software that anticipates disruptions – once again revolutionize how business gets done. 

“To thrive when volatility is the new normal, businesses need more than a patchwork of disparate best-of-breed applications,” said Muhammad Alam, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, SAP Product & Engineering. “Our announcements today demonstrate the power of SAP Business Suite, where AI, data and applications come together in an experience to propel smarter decisions, faster execution and scalable transformation.”

AI that Partners with People

SAP unveils Joule’s next stage as the AI force at the center of SAP Business Suite’s value creation. Drawing on the applications and data from across SAP Business Suite, SAP is introducing a new generation of role-aware assistants in Joule. Each assistant is designed to partner with a human being in their specific business role. Assistants in Joule tap into the right agents for the job, configuring, orchestrating and managing them so humans can focus on unlocking new levels of insight and productivity.

Supporting the assistants in Joule is a growing library of specialized Joule Agents, designed to help execute complex workflows within a specific function. For instance, a People Manager Assistant coordinates a team of specialized agents — including the new People Intelligence Agent, which helps spot and resolve issues like compensation anomalies — to support managers as they drive performance. A new Financial Planning Assistant will be aided by a group of expert agents — including the new Cash Management Agent, which optimizes cash flow and improves interest yields — to help finance professionals drive efficiencies. This new roster of role-aware AI assistants not only partner with people to elevate performance in their lines of business but also work together across business functions to solve complex enterprise-wide problems.

Data that Defies Boundaries

Data fuels AI’s transformative power but it’s often siloed in different systems. At SAP Connect, we are removing those barriers with SAP Business Data Cloud Connect. SAP BDC Connect securely links SAP BDC with partner platforms to enable a bidirectional flow of business-ready data products across organizational and technological boundaries.

With zero-copy sharing, data stays securely in SAP systems yet remains instantly accessible in customers’ existing data platforms, preserving business context without costly copies. The result: fewer silos, simpler pipelines, no duplication — just trusted data products where and when they’re needed.

SAP also announced that Databricks and Google Cloud are the first partners enabled for SAP BDC Connect, with more to follow. As announced in February 2025, SAP Databricks remains a data service within SAP Business Data Cloud, and SAP BDC Connect extends its benefits across an open data ecosystem. These partnerships give customers faster access to data products for analytics and AI, helping teams move from raw data to real-time business outcomes with greater speed and simplicity.

Applications that Turn Data into Action

At the heart of SAP’s unique value proposition are enterprise applications where data is created and AI-driven insights are experienced. SAP Supply Chain Orchestration is a new AI-native solution that combines the power of Joule with a live knowledge graph to detect real-time risks several suppliers deep and orchestrate a coordinated response, helping customers cut costs and keep supply chains moving. SAP Engagement Cloud, a new customer experience solution, uses business-critical context to personalize interactions across customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. And our next-generation SAP Ariba procurement suite stands out as an AI-native solution, bringing intelligence to every stage of spend management, from sourcing through supplier engagement.

Altogether, these SAP Business Suite innovations mark the beginning of a new era powered by self-reinforcing AI, data and applications that drive intelligence, speed and resilience.

Visit the SAP News Center. Get SAP news via LinkedIn and Bluesky.

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About SAP

As a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, SAP (NYSE: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 www.sap.com.

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Innovation Guide: Reimagining Enterprise AI

Deep research AI and role-based assistants, coupled with SAP Business Suite innovations, take efficiency to new heights.

Businessman Checking Data

SAP and Google Cloud Redefine Enterprise AI with Zero-Copy Data for Google BigQuery

Today, SAP and Google Cloud are expanding their long-standing data and analytics partnership with the launch of SAP Business Data Cloud Connect for Google BigQuery—a new capability introduced at the SAP Connect event in Las Vegas that simplifies access to mission-critical SAP data products from SAP Business Data Cloud through bidirectional, zero-copy sharing.

Deep research AI and role-based assistants, coupled with SAP Business Suite innovations, take efficiency to new heights

By connecting Google BigQuery, the autonomous data to AI platform with agentic capabilities, and SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC), SAP and Google aim to help enterprises of all sizes gain more immediate access to trusted, business-ready data for enterprise analytics and AI across their platforms.

For decades, enterprise data and analytics have existed in separate worlds. Mission-critical business data, rich with semantic context, has been locked within transactional systems. Traditional extract, transform, load (ETL) processes create data replicas that are difficult to govern, quickly become stale, and prevent businesses from acting on real-time insights, ultimately hindering digital transformation.

Our SAP and Google partnership ends this compromise. By eliminating data replication and unifying the data landscape, SAP and Google Cloud are empowering businesses to build intelligent agents, automated workflows, and predictive insights that are directly grounded in live, trusted business information.

As the first hyperscaler to adopt SAP BDC Connect, SAP BDC Connect for Google BigQuery enables organizations to unlock the true potential of their data and applications with secure and rapid access to SAP’s semantically rich and governed data products at scale, without the delays and complexities of data replication and need for ETL pipelines. Customers can flexibly combine SAP data with their other enterprise data in BigQuery and vice-versa to innovate with leading analytics and agentic AI capabilities.

“SAP and Google Cloud have a long history of empowering global enterprises to harness the power of data and AI,” said Christian Klein, CEO of SAP SE. “Bringing together Google BigQuery and SAP Business Data Cloud gives our customers choice without compromise, enabling them to fast-track their analytics and AI initiatives.”

“Businesses are combining intelligence and automation into every aspect of their operations,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “By uniting SAP Business Data Cloud with BigQuery and Gemini models, we’re making it easy for enterprises to build a unified data foundation that breaks down silos and unlocks a new class of AI agents and applications.”

Innovation with SAP data products and Google BigQuery

The centerpiece of this partnership is the new SAP Business Data Cloud Connect for Google BigQuery. This is a zero-copy data fabric that enables seamless access to SAP BDC’s semantically rich business data with Google’s powerful data and AI ecosystem, including Gemini models and the Vertex AI platform. The result is a modern platform for data, analytics, and AI that enables automated, cross-functional business processes.

This bi-directional integration helps to deliver an enterprise-grade offering for building and scaling AI. With SAP Business Data Cloud Connect for Google BigQuery, customers can:

  • Build grounded, trustworthy AI: Ensure the Google BigQuery AI models and agents operate on the most current and complete view of the business by accessing trusted semantically rich SAP data in real-time without copies.
  • Deploy autonomous agents: Build and deploy intelligent agents using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and Gemini that can automate complex cross-functional processes—from supply chain optimization to financial forecasting.
  • Unleash deeper insights: Fuse SAP data through SAP BDC with unique, world-scale datasets only available on Google Cloud, like Google Maps geospatial data, Google Trends, and public datasets, to create unparalleled business context.
  • Reinvent analytics: Move beyond dashboards and reports. Enable anyone in the organization to ask complex questions on Google Cloud of their business data in natural language and get immediate, intelligent answers.

Availability

Google Cloud will offer customer and partner incentives that fast-track the adoption of these joint solutions, enabling an accelerated journey to AI-infused data transformations.

SAP Business Data Cloud is available today in Google Cloud regions across Asia Pacific, Europe, and the U.S., with more regions planned. SAP Business Data Cloud Connect for Google BigQuery is planned to be generally available in H1 2026.

In addition, SAP BW, private cloud edition, which is offered through SAP BDC, is supported in more than 40 Google Cloud regions, helping our customers meet critical data residency and compliance requirements.

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2023 Ryder Cup - Singles Matches

SAP Swings Into the 2025 Ryder Cup

Every two years, the Ryder Cup captivates sports fans worldwide. Unlike any other golf tournament, the biennial event transforms an individual sport into a team competition, as the top 12 players from the United States and Europe face off in a head-to-head match play competition.

This weekend, the golf drama will unfold at the storied Bethpage Black Course in New York, as rivalry and camaraderie collide. For the first time, SAP will be at the heart of the action as a Worldwide Partner of the 2025 and 2027 Ryder Cup.

Transforming the Ryder Cup fan experience

Since its inception in 1927, the Ryder Cup has united millions of fans around unforgettable moments. Yet behind the emotion and spectacle lies immense complexity. Two distinct organizations, the PGA of America and Ryder Cup Europe, must come together every two years to deliver a seamless tournament experience.

Going into the 2025 event, the Ryder Cup turned to SAP for help in transforming what it means to engage fans across the two organizations. With a goal of moving beyond a “one-day” experience to building an “everyday” connection, the Ryder Cup wanted to ensure every fan — whether onsite or halfway across the world — feels immersed in the tournament, experiencing the excitement, emotion, and strategy as if they were on the course.

ROME, ITALY – OCTOBER 01: Viktor Hovland of Team Europe tees off on the first hole during the Sunday singles matches of the 2023 Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf Club on October 01, 2023 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

This partnership will allow the Ryder Cup to benefit from using SAP technologies to further enhance the experience for fans. SAP Customer Data Platform will unify fan data from multiple sources, creating a single, comprehensive profile for each fan. SAP Emarsys will then use that data to deliver personalized content across marketing channels. SAP Datasphere will harmonize customer and business data and help identify insightful correlations, making it ready for visualization in SAP Analytics Cloud, where insights can be turned into action. SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud are part of SAP Business Data Cloud.

Together, these solutions will help the Ryder Cup gain a deeper understanding of audience behavior, drive engagement, and deliver personalized experiences at scale, while paving the way for future AI-driven innovation and a globally connected fan journey. Beyond tournament week, this 360-degree view of each fan will provide insights that benefit both organizations year-round, improving planning, marketing, and engagement that can be scaled across other professional tournaments.

Shared values in action

The Ryder Cup is more than a sporting event. It is a showcase of teamwork, resilience, and strategy — qualities that are equally essential in business. At its core, every Ryder Cup moment is defined by a challenge that demands a solution, whether it’s a player navigating tough conditions, making a critical decision under pressure, or leading a team to victory.

Through this partnership, SAP highlights the performance and collaboration that drive success, inspiring organizations and individuals to bring out their best on the course and in business.

FARMINGDALE, NY – SEPTEMBER 20: A view of the Ryder Cup trophy nearby the first hole of the future site of the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black Course on September 20, 2022. (Photo by Gary Kellner/PGA of America)

Looking ahead

As anticipation builds for Bethpage Black this weekend, fans will see and feel SAP’s presence throughout the tournament, from on-course signage to coverage on TV, online, and social channels.

Beyond the event, SAP and the Ryder Cup are laying the foundation for a new era of fan engagement, connecting millions of fans around the world and helping to create moments that will be remembered long after the final putt.

SAP empowers athletes, performers, teams, leagues, and venues with cloud solutions, embedded AI, and industry expertise

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