Most SAP users see AI enhancing organisational benefits

A recent survey conducted by the UK & Ireland SAP User Group (UKISUG) has found that nearly three-quarters of SAP users believe enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) will benefit their organisation.

The survey, which involved 327 SAP user organisations, identified that 74% of respondents see potential benefits from AI implementation. Furthermore, 58% asserted that SAP would play a significant role in deploying AI within their enterprises.

While AI enthusiasm runs high, knowledge of SAP Joule, SAP's natural language generative AI co-pilot, varies among users. In the survey, 36% of respondents had heard of SAP Joule but were not familiar with it, and 28% stated they were somewhat familiar. Only 3% described themselves as extremely familiar with the tool. Despite this, 56% of the respondents felt that SAP Joule could enhance their organisation's overall SAP utility.

Conor Riordan, Chair at UKISUG, commented on the findings, "The rapid advances in AI offer organisations the potential to derive greater value from their data, while enhancing both user and customer experiences. With SAP at the core of many organisations, there is a clear opportunity for it to support customers on their enterprise AI journey." He added, "As SAP Joule becomes integrated into an increasing number of SAP applications, it's evident that further communication and education are needed as organisations shape their AI strategies. Through events like UKISUG Connect and TECHx, we will continue to collaborate with SAP to ensure our members gain a deeper understanding of how to effectively leverage technologies like SAP Joule."

The survey also highlighted the influence of AI on future SAP deployments. Over half (53%) of respondents indicated that access to SAP's AI offerings would impact their deployment plans for SAP in the future, especially amid ongoing SAP S/4HANA migrations.

Riordan also addressed the challenges regarding SAP's future innovations, stating, "How organisations will access SAP's future innovations, such as AI, remains a topic of much discussion. Moving to the cloud via RISE provides the most straightforward path, although it is often a multi-year, multi-phase process. However, some on-premises customers are unlikely to transition to RISE due to the complexity and critical nature of their implementations. For these organisations, the key question is how essential SAP's AI offerings are to them, and if so, whether there will be an alternative means to access these capabilities."

Leila Romane, Managing Director of SAP UK and Ireland, also offered insights into how AI is impacting businesses. She said, "Artificial intelligence is transforming the very fabric of how businesses operate. This year, we have made great progress in showing how our AI co-pilot, Joule, and our embedded AI capabilities can deliver tangible impact for organisations of all sizes. SAP Business AI is no proof-of-concept, it's available now and we have thousands of customers using it for everything from payroll analysis to mitigating supply chain emissions. We know that our customers are all at different stages of their innovation journeys. We are committed to supporting them as we showcase what AI can do, so that we can help them take full advantage of AI's potential."