E3 Category: MAG 26-07

Artificial intelligence and agent-driven processes have long since become part of everyday life. But for Copilot and similar tools to deliver useful results, human expertise is essential.

The cloud exit problem has not yet been solved, and already the need for another exit strategy for AI is becoming apparent. How will sovereignty ever be achieved?

Three-quarters of global AI value creation comes from just 20 percent of companies. Germany ranks ahead of the U.S., the U.K., and Japan in the AI Fitness Index, but lags significantly in AI-driven revenue growth.

With its product updates for Q1 2026, SAP is continuing to drive the integration of artificial intelligence into business processes and development environments. The focus is on the Joule AI platform, which is increasingly becoming the central user interface for various solutions.

SAP is supporting TCS's large-scale payroll transformation, thereby advancing its cloud-first strategy.

VMware's revised licensing policy is forcing IT service providers to rethink their strategies. The managed service provider FIS-ASP is breaking free from vendor lock-in and migrating its business-critical SAP environments to the open SUSE KVM platform.

Many companies do not fully tap into the economic potential of their ERP landscape. Usage and operating costs are rising steadily, while opportunities for optimization often go undiscovered. Why taking a close look at licensing and operating models is crucial.

The buzz surrounding SAP’s April 2026 API policy has died down. Customers and partners are increasingly coming to terms with the announcements regarding the Autonomous Enterprise, the SAP Autonomous Suite, and the Cleanfield Approach, and are gradually gaining a clearer understanding.

SAP promotes the Autonomous Enterprise as the next step in the evolution of digitalization. But with every decision delegated to AI agents, dependence on the underlying models grows. How autonomous do companies really become as a result, and who controls this autonomy?

The podcast for the E3 cover story is a supplement and continuation of the online texts from the E3 print magazine. A dialog between two AI avatars with knowledge from the German-speaking E3 editorial team provides an insight into the processes surrounding SAP and the SAP community. Translations into English, Spanish and French are provided by DeepL and Google.

Sapphire 2026 marks a strategic turning point. Instead of cloud migration, process harmonization, and S/4 HANA transformation, this year’s focus was on the „Autonomous Enterprise“—and thus on the question of how ERP landscapes will become smarter and more autonomous in the future.

„Cloud first“ is becoming „AI first“: SAP is evolving from an ERP system into a platform for AI-driven business processes. Many companies are still a long way from this. Bridge technologies already enable AI applications in on-premises SAP systems and pave the way to the cloud.