SAP—Best-of-Breed

AI-supported SAP Business Suite is the end of a best-of-breed ERP

SAP aims to orchestrate AI agents and role-based AI assistants across business units in Joule. The ERP patchwork quilt will evolve into a two-tier AI system consisting of assistants and agents. "To thrive when volatility is the new normal, businesses need more than a patchwork of disparate best-of-breed applications," said Muhammad Alam, SAP Executive Board Member and Head of Product Engineering. "Our announcements today demonstrate the power of SAP Business Suite, where AI, data and applications come together in an experience to propel smarter decisions, faster execution and scalable transformation."

At the SAP Connect event in Las Vegas, SAP demonstrated how integrating AI, data, and applications can create added value for customers. Innovations include a new network of role-based AI assistants that increase the performance of AI agents, as well as a growing data ecosystem that provides insights into company data and predicts supply chain disruptions.

SAP-Joule: AI assistants and AI agents

SAP continues to strengthen the AI assistant Joule as a driving force for added value in the SAP Business Suite. At SAP Connect in Las Vegas, SAP presented a new generation of role-based AI assistants based on the applications and data of the new Business Suite that understand business context. Each assistant is designed to support users in their specific roles within the company. The assistants use the appropriate AI agents for the task at hand, configuring, combining, and controlling them as needed. This sophisticated, two-tiered AI system can consolidate the S/4 patchwork and potentially incorporate additional AI agents from competitors. This would create an AI ontology within the new Business Suite, which could evolve into a composable ERP.

A back-referenced SAP Joule system

According to SAP, Joule assistants are supported by a growing library of specialized agents to perform complex workflows within a specific function. For instance, an AI People Manager Assistant coordinates a team of specialized AI agents, including the new People Intelligence Agent, which detects and resolves issues such as compensation anomalies, to support ERP users.

Similarly, a new AI Financial Planning Assistant is supported by a group of AI agents—such as the new Cash Management Agent, which optimizes cash flow and improves interest income—to help finance professionals increase efficiency.

This new generation of role-based AI assistants and agents supports ERP users, improving performance in their respective areas. SAP Joule-based AI is also designed to work cross-functionally to solve complex, enterprise-wide challenges.

Databricks becomes best-of-breed partner of SAP BDC Connect

In Las Vegas, SAP announced that Databricks and Google Cloud are the first Business Data Cloud Connect partners. Others will follow. However, as of February 2025, Databricks will remain a data service within SAP BDC (Business Data Cloud). BDC Connect is intended to extend these benefits across an open data ecosystem. These partnerships between Google, Databricks, and SAP will allow customers to access data products for analytics and AI faster.

At SAP Connect in Las Vegas, SAP introduced BDC Connect to overcome data hurdles and counteract an ERP patchwork. The new Databricks solution securely links BDC with platforms from other partners and competitors, enabling a two-way flow of ready-to-use data products across company and technical boundaries. The result could be fewer data silos, simpler data flows, and no costly data duplication.

Knowledge Graph from SAP Hana with best-of-breed

In Las Vegas, SAP presented a new application of the Knowledge Graph from SAP Hana. For many years, graph theory in general and graph databases in particular have been considered successful representations of data networks. SAP Supply Chain Orchestration is a new, native AI solution that combines the strengths of Joule with a knowledge graph. It identifies risks at upstream suppliers in multi-level supply chains in real time and responds with coordinated measures.

At the SAP Connect event in Las Vegas, Executive Board Member Muhammad Alam made an important announcement. SAP's customers need more than a patchwork of different best-of-breed applications. This insight is unclear, as SAP is unlikely to describe S/4 Hana as a patchwork. However, the path to a composable ERP seems consistent.

At the same time, Muhammad Alam's statement was qualified on a technical level. A two-tier system of AI assistants controlling several AI agents will probably result in another patchwork quilt. In Las Vegas, it was also announced that the Databricks component of the SAP BDC (Business Data Cloud) will be expanded to include a Databricks connector. Databricks will be integrated as a best-of-breed solution, and a knowledge graph from SAP Hana will be added. It's not possible to have more best-of-breed.