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SAP AI strategy

How AI works across SAP in 2026: what is built into the applications, what runs on the platform, what it costs, where it is available and what to check before you switch it on.

  • Autonomous Enterprise
  • Embedded AI
  • Joule agents
  • Generative AI hub
  • SAP-RPT

By · Updated

Facts checked in October 2026, after SAP TechEd 2026.

At a glance

Strategy
Autonomous Enterprise
Announced (Oct 2026)
40 assistants · 300 agents
Customers using SAP AI
45,000 cloud customers
Models in the AI hub
70+
Platform
SAP Business AI Platform
Billing
Base included · AI Units

SAP Business AI in one page

SAP Business AI is SAP’s name for all the AI in its portfolio: features built into the applications, the Joule assistant and its agents, and the services on the platform used to build your own. Since Sapphire 2026 SAP sells it as the Autonomous Enterprise: software that does more of the routine work by itself while people review and approve.

  • Relevant

    Built into the processes customers already run, not a separate tool.

  • Reliable

    Grounded in business data and SAP’s data model, so answers refer to real documents.

  • Responsible

    Ethics, privacy and compliance checked for every use case.

Three kinds of AI you will meet in SAP

  • Predictive ML

    Learns from history

    Models trained on past documents propose a match, a date or a risk: cash application, GR/IR monitoring, delivery delay prediction.

    Since 2017 · ISLM, HANA PAL/APL, SAP-RPT

  • Generative AI

    Reads and writes text

    Large language models explain an error, summarise a dispute, draft a text or read an invoice PDF, grounded in SAP data.

    Since 2023 · Joule, Document AI, generative AI hub

  • Agents

    Plans and acts

    Agents chain several steps across systems (find, check, propose, post) and ask a person to approve before anything is booked.

    Since 2025 · Joule assistants and agents

How the pieces fit together

SAP’s AI stack in 2026, from what users see down to the data the answers come from. Responsible AI runs across every layer.

  1. Joule Work

    The AI user experience

    • Web · desktop · mobile · voice
    • Microsoft 365
    • Claude Cowork
    • Glean
    • ServiceNow

  2. SAP Autonomous Suite

    Assistants, agents and AI features in the apps

    • Finance
    • Spend
    • Supply chain
    • HCM
    • CX
    • Industry AI

  3. SAP Business AI Platform

    SAP BTP, Business Data Cloud and Business AI combined

    • Joule Studio
    • SAP AI Core
    • Generative AI hub
    • Document AI
    • SAP Build
    • Integration Suite
    • AI Agent Hub

  4. Data and context

    What the AI is grounded in

    • SAP Business Data Cloud
    • SAP Knowledge Graph
    • SAP HANA Cloud (vector, graph)
    • SAP Databricks
Responsible AI
Ethics review, ISO 42001, no LLM training on your data

  • Joule Work

    One workspace where Joule assistants pick up tasks across SAP and non-SAP apps. It uses the A2A (agent to agent) and MCP (Model Context Protocol) standards through a governed agent gateway, and is rolling out in phases after testing with more than 110,000 SAP employees.

  • Assistants and agents

    An assistant is the role-based front door (for example the Financial Closing Assistant). Behind it, specialised agents each do one job, such as proposing accruals or clearing open items.

  • SAP Business AI Platform

    Announced at Sapphire 2026: SAP BTP, SAP Business Data Cloud and SAP Business AI presented as one governed environment to build, reason and govern. It brings existing services together rather than replacing them.

From Leonardo to agents

Ten years of AI at SAP: machine learning first, then generative AI, now agents. Dates still to come are SAP’s plans.

  1. 2017Live

    SAP Leonardo

    Machine learning services on SAP Cloud Platform. Retired in 2020; the generic services moved to SAP AI Core and AI Business Services.

  2. 2020Live

    ISLM in S/4HANA

    Intelligent Scenario Lifecycle Management brings embedded and side-by-side ML scenarios to SAP S/4HANA 2020.

  3. Sep 2023Live

    Joule

    SAP announces Joule, its generative AI copilot, first for SuccessFactors and SAP Start, then S/4HANA Cloud in 2024.

  4. Oct 2024Live

    Joule agents

    At TechEd, SAP announces collaborative AI agents and the SAP Knowledge Graph.

  5. Feb 2025Live

    Business Data Cloud

    SAP Business Data Cloud with SAP Databricks: SAP data products shared with ML tools without copies.

  6. Dec 2025Live

    SAP-RPT-1

    SAP’s own model for tables predicts from examples, with no training step.

  7. May 2026Live

    Autonomous Enterprise

    Sapphire: Joule Work, the SAP Business AI Platform, Joule Studio 2.0, plans for Claude from Anthropic as a primary reasoning model, and agents opened to on-premise customers.

  8. Oct 2026Live

    300 agents

    TechEd: 40 assistants and 300 agents from SAP and partners, an agent gateway for other vendors’ agents, SAP-RPT-TS for time series.

  9. Q1 2027Next

    SAP-RPT-2

    Planned: anomaly detection and multi-table input for SAP-RPT, and the SAP Enterprise AI Gateway.

AI in finance

Finance is where SAP has shipped the most AI. Three layers live side by side: Joule assistants with their agents for the close, receivables and treasury; classic machine learning services such as Cash Application; and small generative AI features inside the Fiori apps.

Not AI: Predictive Accounting, which posts expected revenue and cost from open sales orders into an extension ledger, is rule-based. It is often sold together with AI, but no model is involved.

Joule assistants for finance

Agents
  • Available7 agents

    Financial Closing Assistant

    Orchestrates the period-end close. Some of its agents, such as Accounting Accruals, are still in restricted availability.

    • Journal Entry
    • Accounting Accruals
    • Receivables & Payables Clearing
    • Asset Accounting Anomaly Detection
    • Financial Consistency Analysis
    • Analytical Business Insights
    • Financial Closing Orchestration
  • Available7 agents

    Accounts Receivable Assistant

    Collections, dunning and disputes, including outreach emails. SAP estimates up to 25% lower controllable DSO.

    • Collection Account Preparation
    • Dunning Insights
    • Collections Email Outreach
    • Dispute Creation
    • Dispute Resolution
    • Receivable Account Analysis
    • Accounts Receivable Orchestration
  • Available3 agents

    Cash & Treasury Assistant

    Cash positioning and bank relationship tasks for the treasury team.

    • Cash Positioning
    • Bank Relationship
    • Orchestration
  • Available3 agents

    Accounts Payable Assistant

    Supplier payment inquiries and the clearing of open payables.

  • Available2 agents

    Financial Consolidation Assistant

    Group close and consolidation. SAP claims a close up to 68% faster.

  • Available6 agents

    Billing Assistant

    Billing and the resolution of billing and credit blocks, together with the sales operations agents.

  • Early adopters5 agents

    Tax and Compliance Assistant

    Legal changes and statutory reports. Recurring Receivables and International Trade are also in Early Adopter Care.

    • Legal Change
    • Statutory Report Analysis
  • Q1 2027

    Revenue and disclosure

    Revenue Recognition and Disclosure assistants enter Early Adopter Care in Q1 2027, as announced at SAP Connect in October 2026.

Status from SAP’s Q3 2026 release notes. “Available” assistants are rolled out in phases, by product and country. Benefit figures are SAP’s own estimates.

Machine learning that already runs in many systems

Predictive ML

  • SAP Cash Application

    Learns from past clearing and proposes or clears the match of incoming payments to open items. Also reads payment advices and lockbox files.

    Scope item 1MV · S/4HANA 2020 or later

  • GR/IR reconciliation

    Proposes the next step, priority and root cause for each open GR/IR item, learned from accountants’ past decisions.

    Intelligent Account Automation · S/4HANA Cloud

  • Payment advice and invoices

    SAP Document AI reads PDFs and emails (payment advices, supplier invoices) and turns them into structured data.

    Document AI Base, Premium or Embedded

  • Abnormal liquidity items

    An embedded scenario that flags unusual items in cash management, trained in the S/4HANA database.

    Embedded ISLM scenario

Generative AI inside the finance apps (2026)

Generative AI
New in S/4HANA Cloud, Q1 2026
FeatureWhat it does
Error explanationExplains an error message in plain language and suggests the fix.
E-invoicing error explanationFor SAP Document and Reporting Compliance; SAP estimates about 150 minutes down to 30 per error (Private Edition).
Fixed asset key figuresExplains asset values in natural language (Private Edition).
Settlement rule proposalsProposes the settlement rule of an order or project (Private Edition).
Payment advice extractionDocument AI reads payment advices for cash application; SAP estimates 70% less processing time.

Beyond finance

  • Spend

    Eight assistants with 13 agents, including requisition, invoicing and procurement contracts, with AI contract creation generally available.

  • SAP Concur

    Expense automation and pre-submit audit agents check receipts and policy before an expense report is sent.

  • SuccessFactors

    Payroll, recruiting, onboarding, HR service and upskilling assistants.

  • Supply chain

    Planning, production and logistics agents, plus SAP-RPT-TS time-series forecasts in SAP IBP.

Platform and models

Everything SAP delivers, and everything you build yourself, runs on the SAP Business AI Platform: since May 2026, SAP’s name for SAP BTP, SAP Business Data Cloud and SAP Business AI together. These are the services an architect works with.

  • SAP AI Core

    Runs AI workloads: training and serving of your own models (Argo, KServe) and access to the models of the generative AI hub. Managed in SAP AI Launchpad.

  • Generative AI hub

    One contract and one API for more than 70 models from several providers, with orchestration, prompt registry, grounding and usage monitoring. Needs the AI Core extended plan.

  • SAP Document AI

    Extraction of invoices, purchase orders, payment advices and other documents, combining SAP’s own models with LLMs. Formerly Document Information Extraction.

  • SAP Knowledge Graph

    Maps SAP entities and their relationships (millions of fields, hundreds of thousands of tables, hundreds of data products) so Joule and agents understand the data model.

  • SAP HANA Cloud

    One database for relational, vector, graph, text and spatial data: vector, graph and hybrid retrieval for RAG (retrieval-augmented generation), plus PAL and APL for classic ML.

  • Joule Studio

    Build your own Joule skills and agents, low-code or pro-code (LangGraph, AutoGen, LlamaIndex). Version 2.0 introduced at Sapphire 2026.

What happens to a prompt in the generative AI hub

The orchestration service runs each request through the same modules, in this order:

  1. Grounding

    Adds facts from your documents or SAP data (vector search).

  2. Templating

    Builds the prompt from a stored template and its parameters.

  3. Data masking

    Pseudonymises personal data before it leaves.

  4. Input filter

    Blocks harmful or off-policy content.

  5. Model call

    Sends the prompt to the chosen LLM.

  6. Output filter

    Checks the answer before it is returned, then unmasks it.

Model providers in the hub

  • Anthropic Claude
  • OpenAI GPT
  • Google Gemini
  • Mistral
  • Meta Llama
  • Amazon Nova
  • IBM Granite
  • Cohere
  • Perplexity

More than 70 frontier and open-weight models. Model versions change every quarter: check the current list in SAP AI Launchpad. In May 2026 SAP announced plans to make Claude from Anthropic a primary reasoning model for Joule; Mistral runs on SAP’s own cloud infrastructure for sovereign use.

SAP’s own models

  • SAP-RPT Tables

    Relational pretrained transformer: send labelled example rows and the rows to predict in one call, and it classifies or estimates with no training. RPT-1 (Dec 2025), 1.5 and 1.6 (2026, with explanations), RPT-TS for time series; RPT-2 planned for Q1 2027.

  • TabPFN Tables

    The tabular model of Prior Labs, which SAP bought in 2026 (more than €1 billion committed over four years). TabPFN-3.5 Plus has been in SAP AI Core since September 2026.

  • SAP domain models SAP know-how

    Trained on SAP code, metadata and processes. They power Joule and Joule Studio (for example ABAP generation) and are mostly not called directly by customers.

Where it runs and what it costs

Cloud first: the newest AI reaches S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition before anything else.

AI by SAP ERP deployment, October 2026
DeploymentEmbedded AI featuresJoule assistants and agentsPlatform AI services
S/4HANA Cloud Public EditionYesFirst to receive new featuresYesYes
S/4HANA Cloud Private EditionYesMost features; some are Public onlyYesWith RISEYes
S/4HANA on-premisePartlyEmbedded ML (ISLM) since 2020PartlyMax Success Plan with a cloud commitmentYesSide-by-side, licensed separately
SAP ERP (ECC)NoNo ISLMPartlySame condition as on-premisePartlyOwn integration

Until 2026 SAP said new AI would come only through the cloud. At Sapphire 2026 it opened a large part of the Joule assistants and agents to hybrid landscapes, including on-premise S/4HANA and ECC, but only for customers on the Max Success Plan who commit most of their landscape to the cloud. SAP calls it an interim step and stays cloud-first.

How SAP AI is paid for

  • Base AI

    Included

    Included in SAP cloud subscriptions at no extra cost. Joule Base needs a zero-cost entitlement in the contract and acceptance of SAP’s AI terms. From Q3 2026 most generative AI features move into Base.

  • AI Units

    Prepaid

    Premium AI and agents are paid with AI Units: bought yearly, pooled across the company, valid 12 months and tracked in SAP for Me. Per-user packages are being phased out; in 2026 each agent action uses 0.02 AI Units. Free offers for custom agents end in December 2026.

  • RISE and GROW

    Bundles

    RISE with SAP includes three Joule assistants in the first year; GROW with SAP includes the full assistant portfolio at onboarding.

  • Platform services

    Consumption

    SAP AI Core, the generative AI hub, Document AI, Cash Application and Intelligent Account Automation are separate cloud services, billed by consumption or subscription.

SAP’s AI pricing changed several times in 2025 and 2026. Check the current SAP Business AI pricing page and your contract before you plan a budget.

Responsible AI and your data

The questions that come up first in every steering committee, especially in Europe.

  • AI ethics policy

    SAP’s Global AI Ethics Policy follows UNESCO’s ten principles. Every use case gets an impact assessment and a risk class, with a steering committee and an external advisory panel. Version 3.0 was published in 2026.

  • ISO/IEC 42001

    Joule, SAP AI Core and SAP AI Launchpad are certified to the international standard for AI management systems.

  • Your data

    SAP does not share customer data with model providers to train or improve their LLMs, and the providers do not keep it. SAP may use data to improve its own products, with an opt-out in SAP for Me.

  • EU AI Act

    SAP says the prohibited practices of Article 5 are covered. An AI Governance Assistant for risk classification enters Early Adopter Care in November 2026. The obligations for Annex III high-risk systems now apply from 2 December 2027.

Getting started

Six steps that work for most SAP finance teams.

  1. Find what you already own

    The SAP Business AI catalog in SAP Discovery Center lists almost 400 features and agents by product, release and licence.

  2. Accept the AI terms

    Base AI and Joule stay off until the AI terms and the zero-cost entitlements are in the contract.

  3. Set up the platform

    A subaccount on the SAP Business AI Platform (BTP), SAP Cloud Identity Services for single sign-on, then the Joule and AI Core subscriptions.

  4. Start with one measurable case

    Pick a process with a clear figure, such as auto-cleared payments, DSO or days to close, and measure it before and after.

  5. Clean the data

    Models learn from your history: consistent clearing, reason codes and master data matter more than the model.

  6. Govern and watch the cost

    Register agents in SAP AI Agent Hub, run the AI ethics assessment and monitor AI Unit consumption in SAP for Me.

Reality check. In the DSAG Investment Report 2026 (198 companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland), 43% had AI in production. Of those productive scenarios, 77% ran on non-SAP solutions and only 3% directly on SAP technology. Adoption lags the announcements: plan for proofs of value, not big-bang rollouts.

References