E3 Category: Editor-in-Chief Blog

Behind the cloudy AI marketing promises of the Walldorf-based software company SAP, a fundamental paradigm shift is currently taking place that will massively change the future of business data processing. LLMs naturally fail with abap tables.

For the German-speaking SAP user group (DSAG), it is unacceptable that SAP severely restricts the use of APIs for undocumented purposes, for systematic mass data extractions and for interaction with autonomous generative AI systems from third-party providers.

SAP CEO Christian Klein propagates the dawning age of Agentic AI, in which autonomous AI agents as digital „super workers“ no longer just passively answer questions, but independently analyze, orchestrate and execute complex end-to-end processes in Composable ERP.

In the new Abap Cloud world, unlimited direct access to database tables, the local file system or the kernel of the application server is strictly prohibited. For existing SAP customers, this development doctrine results in a painful and expensive refactoring process.

Investors fear that expensive cloud software subscriptions will be radically devalued as sophisticated AI agents perform the tasks of office workers largely autonomously, drastically reducing the need for thousands and thousands of individual licenses.

While SAP CEO Christian Klein uses artificial intelligence primarily as a sales vehicle for his cloud strategy and invests huge sums in hyperscaler partnerships, Siemens CEO Roland Busch has a much sharper and more independent vision.

Under the strict dictates of the SAP Clean Core strategy, the future of Abap is defined by cloud compliance, AI, strict governance and absolute upgrade stability. Users are forced to rethink their historically grown and individualized ERP architectures.

The Business Technology Platform, SAP BTP, is already causing real problems for many existing customers when it comes to licensing. According to a presentation by Michael Bloch, Head of Licenses, Contracts and Support at the German-speaking SAP User Group (DSAG), there now appear to be even more problems with the SAP Business Data Cloud.

In times of radical transformation, a narrative is essential for IT companies like SAP. Storytelling condenses the complex reality of cloud, AI and quantum computing, reduces the unmanageable technical complexity and creates the confidence to invest millions.

Cloud computing is no longer a megatrend. The SAP share price has fallen by up to 40 percent from its all-time high. In an interview with Manager Magazin, SAP CEO Christian Klein promises to restore the old glory, this time with AI.

The new SAP Chief Quantum Officer will need a quantum consolation, see Daniel Craig in James Bond 2008, when he soon has ERP processes calculated using qubits, the smallest unit of information in quantum computing.

The belief that by signing a Rise-with-SAP contract, responsibility for SAP S/4 Hana operations is handed over to the Walldorf ERP group is one of the most dangerous errors in the current transformation and S/4 conversion.