The Forgotten Majority

AI is ubiquitous in the SAP environment. However, amid all the talk of new platforms and cloud strategies, SAP customers who continue to run their core systems on-premises or in hybrid environments are being overlooked. For them, a move to the cloud is neither realistic nor desirable. The key question, therefore, is not which AI platform is the right one, but how AI can be meaningfully integrated into existing SAP landscapes. After all, whether AI becomes a daily support tool for the majority of SAP users depends not only on the technology itself, but also on architecture, data protection, compliance, processes, and user experiences.

Two Obstacles on the Path to AI

Anyone who wants to successfully implement AI in a company almost always faces two key challenges. The first is technical in nature: AI must be able to integrate into existing systems. The second concerns its use: AI must be available where people actually work. If either of these two conditions is missing, AI will remain either an architectural project or an interesting experiment.

Challenge 1: AI must fit the reality of the business: Many SAP customers in the DACH region operate within a clearly defined business reality: strict data protection and compliance requirements, established integration landscapes comprising SAP and non-SAP systems, and internal IT resources that are heavily burdened by ongoing projects. The commonly held impression that innovative AI is only achievable through a complete migration to the cloud therefore falls short and creates more uncertainty than clarity. Companies do not need technology that ignores their specific circumstances. They need solutions that work within those circumstances.

Challenge 2: AI must be present where the work is done: When it comes to AI solutions, public discussion often revolves around models, platforms, and tools. For buyers, planners, service staff, or controllers, however, something else matters. They want to find information more easily, make decisions faster, and reduce routine tasks. AI therefore only becomes relevant once it is integrated into their familiar work processes—in the Fiori Launchpad, in a line-of-business application, or within an established workflow. From a UX perspective, the real transformation does not take place at the technology level.

For AI to be effective in a company, therefore, both hurdles must be overcome: technical integration and integration into everyday work.

Solution: Custom Development

Here, custom development takes on a new meaning. For a long time, it was viewed as a cost and risk factor. „Clean Core“ or adherence to standards as much as possible seemed to set the direction. There are good reasons for this trend. Standardization reduces complexity, simplifies maintenance, and creates a stable foundation for transformations. At the same time, competitive advantage often does not lie in the standard. And for the “forgotten majority,” this very fact is becoming a problem in light of SAP’s cloud-first strategy.

It was against this backdrop that we developed our Fiori AI Agent. The central question was how on-premises customers, in particular, could use AI directly within the Fiori Launchpad and in existing applications. Users formulate their requests in natural language. The AI accesses relevant data and processes, takes roles and permissions into account, and provides information where decisions are made. Instead of an additional application, a new interaction layer is created—as a complement to the standard.

Custom development thus offers a solution for both technical and application-oriented realities, and thereby provides a perspective for the „forgotten majority.“.

Conclusion

The value of AI is not determined by platforms, but rather by where people work every day. This presents an opportunity especially for the „forgotten majority“ of SAP users: When AI functions become part of existing processes and applications, stable, compliance-compliant system landscapes can be combined with a new level of interaction. Custom development thus takes on a new role: it ensures that AI is deployed where value is created. (Source: Exxcellent Solutions)