SAP is reallocating its own services consultants to build AI agents as it bets its future on a new Business AI Platform that embeds autonomous agents across the company's application suite. The strategy anchored its Q2 earnings call last week, where cloud revenue rose 24% and total revenue climbed 11% to $11.24 billion, even as services revenue dipped slightly due to the internal shift toward AI development.
CEO Christian Klein told investors that ERP migrations continue to drive cloud growth, but the long-term bet is on what he calls the "autonomous enterprise." He said the company is moving "with full speed to turn SAP into an autonomous enterprise," transforming its own engineering and technology operating model "from software development to building AI at scale."
Business AI platform takes center stage
At its Sapphire conference in May, SAP launched the SAP Business AI Platform, along with an AI Agents & Automation layer called Autonomous Suite that sits on top of it. The suite adds AI agents to existing SAP business applications to automate entire end-to-end processes. Klein described the vision: "The autonomous enterprise is anchored in AI agents that can run end-to-end business processes accurately, compliantly and cost effectively and always with the human in the loop."
The push addresses a practical gap Klein sees in enterprise AI adoption. "The reality for many enterprises today is that large language models don't understand business data, processes and governance," he said. "AI token spend doesn't mirror outcomes. Lock-in to single frontier vendors is a growing concern and AI sovereignty is becoming more important."
Acquisitions and partnerships fill foundational gaps
SAP's recent acquisitions target the data foundations needed to make AI agents work. The purchase of data lakehouse platform Dremio and data management provider Reltio aims to unify SAP and non-SAP data and govern it so AI agents can operate reliably across company workflows. Klein cited both deals as central to advancing the company's AI strategy.
On the partnership side, SAP expanded agreements with Google Cloud and Microsoft to enable agent-to-agent interoperability, a growing priority across the tech industry. It deepened work with Snowflake to integrate data into SAP Business Data Cloud, and with Nvidia to embed OpenShell as a security layer for SAP AI agents within the Business AI Platform.
Internal reskilling runs parallel to product shift
The company is also retooling its own workforce. Klein said SAP aims to reach more than 90% of its employees with AI reskilling-through code camps and in-person training-over the next few months. The push reflects a deliberate pivot in how the company develops and delivers its own technology, not just how it sells it.
Why this matters for Executives and Strategy
SAP's move shows a major enterprise vendor staking its roadmap on autonomous agents while simultaneously restructuring internal talent to build them. For strategy leaders, the announcement signals that AI investments are shifting from general-purpose models to business-context-aware systems that touch governance, data integration, and multi-vendor interoperability. The way SAP is reallocating its own consultants and expanding its partner ecosystem offers a concrete model-and a set of pressures-for enterprises weighing how fast and how deep to go with agent-driven AI for Executives & Strategy.
Your membership also unlocks:
