SAP's CEO Talks About The Business AI Opportunity

SAP CEO Christian Klein recently talked about the opportunities for SAP and Business AI on the company's Q2 2023 earnings call:

"Let's now discuss the latest updates to our approach with SAP business AI. […] We believe we are uniquely placed to become the leader in AI built for business. Customers will benefit from new AI powered solutions that step-change how processes can self-learn, and self-automate, to self-optimize business outcomes.?

For example, imagine supply chains that automatically initiate a different delivery route based on weather and congestion data. There will be a step change in how employees can interact with solutions in radically more efficient and personalized ways. For instance, imagine your ERP system using embedded ESG data and business data to decarbonize the supply chain by 5%, simply by asking for it. And there will be a step-change in uncovering new insights that lead to better business decisions. Imagine one trusted data layer across your entire company that enables AI to pull together the right data in seconds. […]

Our approach with SAP Business AI is unmatched in the industry, delivering our customers the most relevant, reliable and responsibly AI built for business.?

Firstly, our AI is relevant because it's embedded into every part of our portfolio. More than 24,000 SAP cloud customers today can already use SAP Business AI across hundreds of built-in AI capabilities and partner use cases.?

To provide a couple of new tangible examples: in SAP transportation management, generative AI will save up to 55% of the processing cost of delivery notes. The new intelligent collections in SAP S/4HANA Finance can reduce the time between invoice and payment by up to 10%.?

Secondly, based on unique business data and business process context, we can deliver the most reliable business AI. Reliable AI hinges on applying the right data to the right model. By using SAP Datasphere to leverage substantial context-rich industry specific data, businesses AI systems can drastically improve accuracy, generate more relevant content and minimize AI hallucinations.

Thirdly, responsible AI is not a buzzword for us. Our customers trust us with their most critical data and can confidently deploy our AI offerings knowing we prioritize the highest levels of security, privacy, compliance and ethics. We comply with the highest standards when it comes to customer consent, security, GDPR escalations. This is what SAP stands for. We will continue to innovate and deliver by creating an AI ecosystem for the future, combining SAP and partner innovation, built on the SAP Business Technology Platform.?

Let me give you some examples of this approach. At SAP Sapphire, we announced a partnership with Microsoft to collaborate on joint generative AI offerings to help customers address the talent gap with new recruitment and development tools. Last week, SAP Sapphire Ventures, a technology-focused VC backed by SAP, announced that it will dedicate 1 billion USD to AI-powered enterprise technology startups.

Earlier this week, we announced strategic investments in three leading generative AI companies: Aleph Alpha, Anthropic, and Cohere. In the fall, we plan to announce new AI solutions and capabilities across our portfolio. All told, we see a huge opportunity with new innovation in AI and believe SAP is uniquely poised to help customers take advantage of this watershed moment. As our Q2 results show, SAP continues to deliver. We are optimistic about the future based on SAP’s core value: delivering technologies that build stronger companies. […]

In closing, let me quickly look back on what we have accomplished in recent years. Our own transformation into a cloud company, our leaner and more agile operating structure, new offerings that bring the power of SAP to more companies, solutions that harness the power of data wherever it resides, and tools that create sustainable business processes across industries. Now it's another special moment for nearly every company is working on the AI revolution in some way. No one sits at the nexus of technology and business like SAP, and we think there is enormous opportunity ahead."

Christian emphasized that these new innovations will be delivered via cloud platforms:

“The success of RISE with SAP is clear. This is SAP’s signature offering, which helps customers move to the cloud and transform their business processes at the same time.?

It's also very important to emphasize that SAP’s newest innovations and capabilities will only be delivered in SAP Public Cloud and SAP Private Cloud using RISE with SAP as the enabler.?

This is how we will deliver these innovations with speed, agility, quality and efficiency. Our new innovations will not be available for on-premise or hosted on-premise ERP customers on hyperscalers. For example, new ERP capabilities, as well as sustainability and carbon accounting solutions, and all our new AI innovations will only be available in the cloud and delivered via RISE and GROW with SAP.”