At Sapphire 2026, SAP unveiled its vision for the autonomous enterprise — “The Autonomous Enterprise.” The goal is to strengthen companies’ most business-critical workflows so that people and artificial intelligence (AI) work closely together to meet growing global business demands in an efficient, strategic and secure way.
At the same time, SAP announced deeper collaboration with Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Palantir to accelerate enterprise adoption of AI.
“‘Almost right’ is not enough for our customers’ most important business processes. By combining the SAP Business AI Platform and the SAP Autonomous Suite, we are making AI agents an integrated part of business processes with direct access to data and governance. That delivers precise, compliant and secure responses while opening new revenue and cost-saving opportunities,” said Christian Klein, CEO of SAP.
The autonomous enterprise includes a unified AI platform to create, customize and govern agents, a standalone suite that manages core business processes, and a new user experience that changes how people interact with enterprise software.
A new foundation for AI in the enterprise
The SAP Business AI Platform is a new foundation for building and deploying AI that is grounded directly in customers’ business operations. It unifies SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Business Data Cloud and SAP’s Business AI into a shared, governed environment.
A central component of the platform is the SAP Knowledge Graph, which maps and structures all business entities, processes and relationships within a customer’s SAP environment to guide AI agents.
Joule Studio is SAP’s AI-focused toolset for developing enterprise agents, applications and agent-driven workflows. Developers can build solutions using no-code, pro-code and AI frameworks of their choice on SAP-managed infrastructure that is secure, scalable and optimized for enterprise AI.
SAP Autonomous Suite across functions and industries
SAP also introduced the SAP Autonomous Suite, which equips SAP’s existing business applications with AI agents capable of handling end-to-end processes.
The solution includes more than 50 specialized Joule assistants across finance, supply chain, procurement, HR and customer management. These assistants automate complete processes by orchestrating over 200 AI agents, each responsible for specific tasks. For example, the new Autonomous Close Assistant can shorten financial close from weeks to days by automatically handling bookkeeping, reconciliations and error corrections.
SAP is expanding its industry offerings with Industry AI — seven standalone solutions aimed at specific sectors. These are built to manage end-to-end business processes while incorporating industry-specific logic, data models, regulations and workflows.
At SAP Sapphire, SAP showcased a partnership with European energy company RWE to apply Industry AI to reduce unplanned downtime at offshore wind farms. In SAP’s autonomous asset management scenario, AI agents analyze data from thousands of past incidents, identify likely causes and generate prefilled work orders with the right tools and proven fixes from other sites.
A new way to work with SAP
SAP also introduced Joule Work, which changes how users interact with SAP systems. Instead of navigating multiple interfaces and entering data manually into different places, users can now interact directly with Joule and describe the desired outcome. Joule then assembles the right workflows, data and AI agents to complete the task.
Joule Work goes beyond simple conversational interfaces. It acts proactively in the background, surfaces relevant insights and automates routine tasks so work progresses even without continuous user input. The solution will be available on desktop, mobile and via voice, and can operate across both SAP and non-SAP systems.
Accelerating the move to autonomous operations with a €100 million fund
SAP has optimized its customer and partner programs to ease the transition to more autonomous operations. To encourage adoption, SAP has created a €100 million fund for SAP partners to help customers implement AI assistants and AI agents developed by SAP. The fund also supports partners building or expanding partner agents on the new SAP Business AI Platform using Joule Studio.
SAP has also enhanced offerings such as RISE with SAP and SAP GROW to speed AI adoption. Both include access to the Joule Assistants portfolio. RISE with SAP customers receive three assistants activated in their first year, while SAP GROW customers receive full portfolio access from day one. Customers running SAP S/4HANA on-premise and SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) are not excluded: those who commit to migrate most of their environment to SAP Cloud ERP will receive access to selected AI scenarios, helping bridge the gap between their current systems and the cloud target.
SAP is introducing new AI-assisted migration tools that can reduce the effort required for ERP migrations by about 35 percent through automation of analysis, code updates, configuration and testing.
Strategic partnerships across multiple categories
- Platform and software suite partnerships include Anthropic — whose Claude model will be among the base models the SAP AI platform uses to power Joule agents in HR, procurement and supply chain; Amazon Web Services, enabling data integration without copying between SAP Business Data Cloud and Amazon Athena; Google Cloud and Microsoft, enabling bidirectional connections between Joule agents and external agent frameworks; Mistral AI and Cohere, providing additional model options on SAP’s cloud infrastructure; n8n, which offers visual AI workflow orchestration inside Joule Studio; NVIDIA, whose OpenShell supplies a reliable, secure runtime for Joule Studio; and Parloa, which brings AI agents into SAP Service Cloud to manage customer interactions with full access to business data and service processes.
- Implementation partnerships include Palantir and Accenture, collaborating on complex data migration scenarios, and Conduct for AI-driven migrations to cloud-based ERP systems.
Read more in the SAP Sapphire 2026 Innovation News Guide.
SAP Sapphire 2026 and the future of the autonomous enterprise
SAP Sapphire 2026 marks a strategic shift as SAP positions itself as a leader in autonomous AI, enterprise automation and AI-driven ERP. Through the SAP Business AI Platform, Joule and the SAP Autonomous Suite, SAP is accelerating progress toward enterprises where AI agents automate business-critical workflows across finance, HR, supply chain, procurement and customer management.
What this means for Swedish companies
Swedish companies face increasing demands for efficiency, cybersecurity, data governance and AI-driven innovation. SAP’s new AI platforms and autonomous assistants can help organizations reduce manual work, streamline ERP processes and enable faster decision-making in complex operating environments.
What this means for MSPs in the Nordics
Managed service providers and IT partners in the Nordics have new opportunities to deliver AI-based services, ERP modernization and automated workflows to clients in the public sector, manufacturing, energy, finance and enterprise markets. SAP’s partner development initiatives and AI fund can open additional business prospects for Nordic integration and consulting firms.
Risks and opportunities
Autonomous AI systems bring significant opportunities as well as new risks. Companies must ensure data quality, governance, compliance and cybersecurity as AI becomes more deeply embedded in business processes. Organizations that successfully combine human expertise with AI-driven workflows can achieve meaningful competitive advantages.
Enterprise AI and the next-generation ERP
AI agents, generative AI, autonomous automation and intelligent ERP systems are rapidly changing how modern enterprises operate. SAP’s collaborations with Anthropic, AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Palantir demonstrate how an enterprise AI ecosystem is becoming increasingly important for future digital businesses.