Six teams are competing for the highest employee recognition at SAP: the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award. Starting this year, the Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award comes with a modified, more focused approach. It now consists of two categories: “Scaling Innovation” and “Emerging Ideas.” Both reflect a different type of breakthrough thinking and the various ways in which innovation drives SAP’s success. This year’s award theme is AI.

The first category, “Scaling Innovation,” honors project teams that excel in innovation, align with SAP’s strategic priorities, and demonstrate significant and sustainable impact on the company. The winners will be announced during the award ceremony on March 26, 2026.

SAP Joule for Developers, ABAP AI capabilities

As organizations worldwide accelerate their transition to SAP S/4HANA, one reality remains unchanged: ABAP continues to power the core of SAP’s technology and the mission‑critical business processes that run on it. At the same time, developers working with this backbone technology have long lacked the modern AI‑driven tooling available in other programming ecosystems—an issue that becomes even more pressing during large‑scale transformation projects.

This gap is precisely what SAP Joule for Developers, ABAP AI capabilities addresses. As part of the broader Joule generative AI portfolio, it brings AI capabilities tailored for ABAP development directly into the hands of development teams. Its mission: to modernize the developer experience of writing, understanding, and maintaining ABAP code and to dramatically accelerate innovation at enterprise scale.

SAP Joule for Developers, ABAP AI capabilities is natively integrated into the ABAP development tools. It supports developers in a hybrid approach that utilizes a large language model fine-tuned by SAP data scientists on millions of lines of ABAP code, along with commercial models augmented with context derived from decades of SAP expertise. This equips developers with specialized capabilities covering everyday tasks like predictive code completion, unit test generation, real-time explanation, and chat-based assistance—significantly boosting productivity and developer satisfaction.

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Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award Finalist: SAP Joule for Developers, ABAP AI capabilities

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Complementing this, ABAP AI for custom code migration redefines how organizations approach the complex task of revamping legacy custom code from SAP ERP Central Component to SAP S/4HANA. What once required weeks of manual analysis can now be accomplished in hours, with AI explaining legacy logic, highlighting needed adaptations, and generating migration proposals. Integrated into the Custom Code Migration app on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), it empowers project managers and consultants to better scope work packages and plan code migration project timelines with far greater accuracy.

SAP Joule for Developers, ABAP AI capabilities already serve thousands of developers across more than 280 customers, 470 partners, and 6,500 internal ABAP developers, with adoption growing rapidly inside SAP and across the ecosystem. Evolving from a 2023 proof‑of‑concept to enterprise availability in 2025, the project stands as a testament to what cross‑organizational collaboration between ABAP, AI, and SAP S/4HANA teams can achieve—bringing innovation to one of SAP’s most essential developer communities.

Team lead Jasmin Gruschke, AI architect and project expert, describes the extraordinary team spirit: “United by a shared vision and customer dedication, we poured our collective energy and dedication into bringing an extraordinary idea to life, demonstrating that, together, we can turn visionary concepts into remarkable realities.”

SAP Document AI

Modern enterprises face a growing obstacle in an increasingly data‑intense world, reflected in the rapid proliferation of unstructured business documents. From invoices and purchase orders to contracts and shipping papers, companies are drowning in information that demands time‑consuming manual processing. SAP Document AI tackles this challenge head‑on by transforming the way enterprises extract, process, and act on document‑based data.

Today, more than 30,000 customers rely on the solution to process billions of documents, embedded seamlessly across SAP’s core applications. SAP Document AI delivers enterprise‑grade automation without costly integrations or extensive model training, enabling businesses to accelerate workflows, reduce errors, and improve decision‑making at scale. Real‑world customer data shows the tangible impact: automated document processing powered by SAP Document AI generates an estimated €2.6 billion in annual business value.

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Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award Finalist: SAP Document AI

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SAP Document AI is now natively integrated into 32 business processes across SAP S/4HANA, SAP Business Network, SAP Concur solutions, SAP Fieldglass solutions, SAP SuccessFactors solutions, the SAP Customer Experience portfolio, and SAP BTP, with dozens more use cases in development. This deep embedding of “everyday AI” into products that are already in use by customers is a key driver of adoption across SAP’s global installed base.

The technology behind the solution sets new industry benchmarks. SAP was among the early innovators in schema-based zero-shot document processing, an approach that enables AI systems to understand complex documents without task-specific retraining, and which is now widely adopted across the AI ecosystem. Even before the rise of large language models, SAP researchers advanced the field with award-winning and trend-setting papers such as CharGrid, BERTgrid, and Charmer, AI methods designed to help computers understand documents.

The team continues to innovate with AI that learns instantly from user feedback, “sees” and interprets documents visually, and understands content well enough to take intelligent actions on it. Their next generation of generative AI models now support over 110 languages. Building on these innovations, platform usage on SAP BTP for custom document automation has increased 285-fold since 2020, underscoring how developers worldwide are leveraging this technology to streamline business processes. Next, SAP Document AI will launch reusable tools that empower AI agents to handle complex document workflows across industries. As unstructured data and diverse document types become central to business processes, demand for smarter, faster, and more adaptable document understanding solutions has never been higher.

Tobias Weller, chief product owner and team lead, states: “We built SAP Document AI to deliver measurable business value at global scale, securely, responsibly, and embedded in everyday processes, demonstrating SAP’s ability to operationalize AI at massive scale.”

SAP SuccessFactors Learning: GenAI Content Generation

With AI reshaping work at unprecedented speed, organizations face a dual challenge: mastering new skills and managing overwhelming amounts of information. SAP SuccessFactors Learning: GenAI Content Generation is a game-changing capability designed to streamline, accelerate, and scale how learning content is produced across the enterprise.

The new capability leverages advanced large language models (LLMs) to convert simple prompts or uploaded files into complete, compliant learning experiences in minutes. What previously required days, weeks, or even months, can now be accomplished almost instantly. The system generates course outlines, quizzes, interactive elements, summaries, and assessments—all tailored to the user’s input and organizational context.

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Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award Finalist:SuccessFactors Learning: GenAI Content Generation

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A key innovation lies in its multi‑LLM orchestration, enabling dynamic selection and combination of specialized models. This ensures high accuracy, domain relevance, and enterprise‑grade content governance. Real-time multilingual translation allows learning teams to launch global courses simultaneously, while AI-based skill extraction automatically aligns content with workforce development strategies.

Early validation shows organizations can produce learning content five times faster, dramatically reducing costs and enabling teams to respond more quickly to shifting skill demands. Subject-matter experts throughout the organization can now create content and share knowledge more effectively—without requiring instructional design expertise. By transforming knowledge into structured, scalable learning experiences, the capability helps organizations strengthen agility, boost employee engagement, and ensure continuous upskilling across the enterprise.

Team lead Neha Dhawan, principal product manager, SAP SuccessFactors Learning, describes the impact of the project: “We’re not just building technology, we’re building possibilities—for admins to move faster, for managers to better support their teams, and for learners to experience content that feels personal and meaningful. If we can make learning more accessible and inspiring, then we’ve created something that truly matters.”

SAP has launched our new defense innovation hub, a dedicated environment designed to accelerate secure, mission-ready results across the defense ecosystem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Andre Bechtold is president of SAP Industries & Experiences.

Photography courtesy of Norbert Steinhauser.

MUNICH —  SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today opened its defense innovation hub in Munich, Germany, underscoring its long-term commitment to strengthening digital readiness as a core element of modern defense capability. This comes at a time of growing geopolitical pressure, hybrid threats and rising demands for interoperability.

The hub is launched as armed forces and security institutions face increasing pressure to manage complex missions across allies, domains and supply chains while maintaining resilience, transparency and control. At the defense innovation hub, SAP brings together software, data, AI and industry expertise to demonstrate how integrated digital systems translate strategic requirements into operational readiness. This enables comprehensive integration across key areas such as personnel readiness, logistics, procurement, manufacturing, training and maintenance. Together, these capabilities form the digital backbone required for real-world defense operations.

“Defense readiness today is no longer defined by equipment alone: It is defined by how well people, processes and partners are connected,” said Thomas Saueressig, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Customer Services & Delivery. “In an increasingly volatile security environment, armed forces need systems they can trust—systems that are resilient, interoperable and sovereign. With our defense innovation hub, SAP is demonstrating how digital platforms can strengthen operational readiness while preserving control, compliance and freedom of action.”

A Hub Built on Munich’s Defense and Technology Ecosystem

Munich’s strong defense and technology ecosystem, combining innovative startups, established industry leaders, academic excellence and public institutions, provided the ideal setting for the new hub. Supported by the Technical University of Munich’s academic excellence and the presence of key government institutions, the Munich region is uniquely positioned for cross-sector collaboration. At today’s launch, the setting provided a fitting backdrop for hands-on demonstrations translating innovation into operational reality. Attendees experienced hands-on scenarios illustrating how SAP for Defense & Security solutions connect people, assets and supply chains in a unified, more secure operational picture.

“The Technical University of Munich is pleased to collaborate with SAP in translating advanced research into operational security and defense capabilities,” said Chiara Manfletti, head of the Aerospace and Geodesy Department at TUM and scientific lead of the newly launched TUM Security and Defense Alliance. “As technological innovation accelerates, strategic partnerships such as this ensure that cutting-edge scientific developments can be rapidly deployed to strengthen operational readiness.”

The launch also served as a lead-in to this week’s Munich Security Conference, where questions of resilience, interoperability and technological sovereignty will dominate the agenda. Throughout the week, SAP will continue engaging with policymakers and partners on how digital innovation can support security and defense in an increasingly fragmented world.

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Naturipe Farms knows berries. The grower-owned company produces sustainably grown berries including strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and cranberries, and delivers them worldwide every day.

Naturipe has been an SAP customer since 2008, and while initially it was not very proactive with software upgrades, the company’s philosophy has changed over time. Today, Carol McMillan, Naturipe’s senior IT director, emphasizes the importance of upgrading and upskilling the team regularly.

“There’s actually more of a risk not upgrading the product and not upskilling your team than there is being more aggressive with that timeline,” she says. Since migrating to SAP S/4HANA in 2018, the company has undergone three upgrades, including RISE with SAP.

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The Tech Behind Naturipe’s Fresh Berries: Naturipe’s Secret to Rapid Growth

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“We migrated to RISE with SAP, and we are looking at how we use those tools to optimize our supply chain and to create a better user experience for our workforce. Our workforce is constantly changing, and technology needs to change with the workforce,” McMillan says.

She says it’s also important to stay at the forefront of technology in order to solve business problems efficiently, and notes that technological advancements have been crucial in managing the company’s exponential growth: “You can’t have linear growth in technology when you have exponential industry growth.”

McMillan says the Naturipe team uses SAP’s technology to prioritize its people and customers, improve workplace happiness, and give users a better experience. “We use technology to make sure that we’re running as optimally as possible,” she says. “We look at process improvements and try to be at the forefront of technology. So, keeping up with the upgrades on a regular basis helps us be prepared for when business problems need to be solved, that way we already have the technology there to be able to solve them.”

Delivering the freshest, highest-quality products to customers 365 days a year requires constant agility—especially in a category influenced by weather variability and the complexity of a highly time-sensitive supply chain. “Berries have a very short shelf life, so getting the best quality to our customers as quickly as possible is essential,” she says.

To support this commitment, Naturipe Farms has invested in advanced logistics and supply chain technologies that enhance speed, visibility, and decision-making. These investments help ensure timely delivery of fresh products while also supporting employee satisfaction and work-life balance through wellness programs and flexible work arrangements.

Looking ahead, Naturipe wants to further enhance the user experience with more powerful tools and learn how to make better use of all the tools that come with RISE with SAP.  McMillan also identifies the potential of AI and the adoption of tools like Joule to improve Naturipe’s operations. “We really want to make the best use of AI and to give our users the best experience possible,” she says.

Her advice for other organizations in the agricultural industry includes the importance of putting people first, using technology to drive strategic growth, and not being a prisoner to risk. “It’s just as risky to not upgrade your technology as it is to have an aggressive timeline and have the tools that you need in order to drive that exponential growth,” she says.

SAP has been recognized as a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Personalization Engines for the seventh time in a row.

We believe this recognition reflects the continued momentum of SAP Engagement Cloud in helping enterprises orchestrate real‑time, AI‑powered engagement at a global scale, connecting data, channels, and experiences to drive measurable business impact.

Helping brands scale AI-powered engagement across channels

Leading brands—including Ferrara, John Frieda, PUMA, and Gibson—use SAP Engagement Cloud to deliver connected, personalized journeys that increase engagement, accelerate growth, and build long-term customer loyalty.

According to the report, SAP’s ability to support enterprise‑grade, real‑time engagement across channels remains a key differentiator. SAP’s personalization capabilities are powered by advanced segmentation, embedded AI decisioning, and intelligent triggering to deliver timely, relevant, and consistent experiences.

Organizations using SAP continue to see measurable outcomes, including improved customer loyalty, higher conversion rates, and increased average order value.

Driving measurable business impact with event‑based and behavior‑led orchestration

We believe this year’s placement also reflects SAP’s strength in orchestrating engagement using real‑time behavioral, transactional, and operational signals across the business.

With SAP Engagement Cloud, brands can activate journeys triggered by events occurring across their business to:

• Boost retention through timely, context‑aware engagement
• Increase conversions with more relevant, personalized interactions
• Strengthen loyalty through connected, lifecycle-driven touchpoints

These results demonstrate SAP’s ability to move enterprises beyond channel execution toward true omnichannel orchestration.

Unifying customer experiences with native SAP integration

SAP Engagement Cloud connects marketing, commerce, service, loyalty, sales, and operational data, creating a unified, real-time customer view that powers intelligent engagement across every touchpoint.

This bi‑directional flow of data gives every customer‑facing team access to the same real‑time customer view, helping brands drive revenue impact, reduce churn, and improve service outcomes.

Global scale, flexibility, and trust

SAP’s long‑standing global footprint and enterprise-ready architecture continue to support its leadership positioning. With a cloud‑native, composable foundation, embedded privacy and compliance capabilities, and a robust partner ecosystem, SAP enables organizations to securely and reliably scale personalized engagement across regions and business models.

Whether operating in five markets or 50, enterprises rely on SAP to deliver personalized experiences with confidence.

Customer success reflecting real‑world impact

Customers on Gartner® Peer Insights™ continue to recognize SAP for ease of integration, deployment support, and customer partnership. Recent examples include:

• Grupo Axo, which uses SAP for CRM and marketing automation that supports interaction and communication with customers to increase buyback, retention, and loyalty. This includes CRM ads, push notification apps, personalization campaigns, e-mail and SMS campaign execution, and website and app personalization and recommendations.
• Molton Brown, which increased sales by 30% in three years by using SAP solutions, to interact directly with customers within highly personalized omnichannel journeys.
• CHRIST, which saw a more than 40% increase in CRM revenue and more than 150% in commerce traffic during the holiday season by using SAP Customer Experience solutions that empower CHRIST to put customers at the center of everything the company does.

These results highlight the tangible value organizations are achieving with SAP’s AI-powered personalization capabilities.

We feel SAP’s recognition as a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Personalization Engines underscores the strength of its strategy and continued innovation across SAP Engagement Cloud. SAP remains committed to helping brands activate data, personalize interactions, connect experiences, and scale engagement with confidence.

Visit SAP Engagement Cloud area of sap.com to download the full 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Personalization Engines report.

Sara Richter is CMO of SAP Emarsys.

Gartner and Magic Quadrant are trademarks of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates.
Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Personalization Engines, By Penny Gillespie, Jason Daigler, Michael Ro, Ross Cosner, 3 February 2026
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s Research & Advisory organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

We are pleased to share that for the eighth consecutive year, Gartner has named SAP a Leader in its Magic Quadrant for Configure, Price, and Quote Application Suites. 

SAP CPQ enables organizations—however complex, across however many channels, and regardless of which CRM they run—to produce quick and accurate quotes, accommodating the most advanced configuration and pricing requirements, resulting in a better sales experience and faster sales cycles.

Gartner evaluated 16 vendors and named SAP a Leader based on our Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. We believe this recognition serves as an acknowledgment of SAP’s ongoing commitment to providing customers with a CPQ solution that can meet and exceed their needs. 

SAP CPQ is an essential component of the SAP product portfolio that help automate the quote-to-cash process, which enables organizations to convert sales opportunities into profitable repeat customers. SAP customers can transform to “everything-as-a-service” with innovative revenue models, quickly adapt to market changes, support multiple sales channels, and support regulatory compliance with end-to-end automation.  

Our customers are the reason we do this, and they participated in the Gartner Peer Insights process by providing reviews that included: 

• “It just makes the whole sales cycle move faster.”
• “It was relatively simple to onboard when I was a new user” platforms and creating value for customer.”
• “We had a very positive experience with SAP, the platform is scalable, stable.”
• “An intuitive user interface that simplifies configuration, robust integration capabilities. Powerful customization options.”
• “SAP CPQ is amazingly stable and consistent product with the ability to connect with different platforms and creating value for customer.”

Customer case studies provide descriptions of specific value. For example, EXFO Inc, has increased the number of quotes created per month by 70 percent. 

“You basically give the salesperson one to two days of their week back by using SAP CPQ,” noted Dominic Kasten, director of Sales Technologies for Cleaver-Brooks. “When you give time back to salespeople, you are encouraging them to sell solutions to customers instead of just reacting to specifications.”

Hear from other customers and learn more about how SAP helps to automate quote-to-cash with SAP CPQ, SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management, SAP Subscription Billing, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud at sap.com.

David Imbert is head of Product Marketing for Finance at SAP. 
Lawrence Martin is chief product officer for Finance at SAP. 

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Configure, Price, and Quote Application Suites, Luke Tipping, Mark Lewis, January 22, 2026 
Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Gartner and Magic Quadrant are a trademark of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates. This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from SAP.