SAP accelerates toward the autonomous enterprise: Joule and AI agents

SAP has taken another step in its vision of the 'autonomous enterprise' with the announcement of new AI assistants and agents during its SAP Connect event. The company claims that this October update fulfills the promises made in May at Sapphire, and that its offering is structured around Joule Work and SAP Autonomous Suite, developed on SAP Business AI. These products will be offered as services managed by SAP through the SAP for Me portal, with general availability starting this month.

SAP's proposal is not an isolated experiment: Joule evolves from being a simple chat based on natural language to becoming a unified interface for all the company's products. According to Manoj Swaminathan, president and product director of SAP Autonomous Suite, "Joule Work now becomes a unified experience for everything users can interact with, with agents supporting it as part of the autonomous suite." Users can continue to use the traditional SAP interface if they prefer, but it is now complemented by agent-assisted experiences and AI integrated into applications, allowing semi-autonomous or fully autonomous use.

The company is already using Joule Work internally with 110,000 employees and claims to have achieved a 20% productivity increase in areas such as finance, human resources, and purchasing. In the financial area, SAP Autonomous Suite can automate revenue recognition, information disclosure, and regulatory compliance; in the supply chain, planners can resolve multi-hour disruptions with a single click in planning, manufacturing, and logistics. There are also capabilities for HR, purchasing, and customer experience.

Additionally, the latest version of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition integrates more deeply with SAP Autonomous Suite and now connects with SAP Ariba and SAP Sales Cloud. Connections with SAP Taulia, SAP Subscription Billing, and SAP SuccessFactors will arrive before the end of the year. Even the on-premise offering, Cloud ERP Private, benefits from managed AI services with new integrations with Joule, currently available through SAP Early Adopter Care and with general availability expected by the end of the year.

What does this mean for an SMB?

For SMBs that already use SAP or are considering migrating to its cloud solutions, these announcements represent an opportunity to automate repetitive tasks without the need to develop AI from scratch. The key is that SAP offers these agents as managed products, which reduces the technical burden and allows small IT teams to focus on configuration and supervision. However, not everything is gold: analysts show mixed opinions. Thomas Randall, from Info-Tech Research Group, considers that SAP does not present revolutionary advances, but rather follows trends already established by Microsoft, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Oracle. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that SAP's advantage lies in its deep knowledge of business processes and its transactional authority, which allows it to position AI as a controlled execution layer for administrative operations.

Jason Andersen, from Moor Insights & Strategy, is more optimistic and highlights that SAP is meeting the promised deadlines, with task-based agents that complement common functions and a platform that helps customize them according to each company's processes. For his part, Carmi Levy, an independent analyst, warns that there is a gap between plans and reality: as agents get closer to core workflows, risks of data integrity, privacy, and accuracy increase, and third-party integration should raise alarms.

At ForgeNEX we believe that SMBs in Seville and Andalusia should look at these movements with interest but without rushing. SAP's autonomous AI can be an accelerator for those who already have their data in order and processes defined, but implementing it without a clear strategy can generate more noise than results. We recommend starting by identifying a specific process (for example, invoice reconciliation or order management) and evaluating whether SAP's agents fit without the need for a complete reengineering. It is also crucial to review data governance: agents need reliable and up-to-date information.

If your company does not use SAP, this announcement is still relevant because it marks where the market is heading: AI is integrated into management applications as another layer, not as an external add-on. In that sense, it is advisable to pay attention to how alternatives for SMBs evolve, such as local AI solutions that we already analyzed in this article, or the dashboard options with AI that we discussed here.

Change management is also a critical factor. Although SAP claims that Joule Work already works internally with good results, each organization is a world of its own. IT teams will need to train in the use of these agents and establish supervision policies to prevent automation from leading to costly errors. The promise of the 'autonomous enterprise' is attractive, but full autonomy is still far for most SMBs. A gradual approach, with controlled pilots and clear metrics, is the most sensible path.

In summary, SAP reinforces its commitment to agentic AI and integrates it into its ERP core. For SMBs, this means more options to automate, but also the need to be more rigorous with data and governance. As always, technology is the means, not the end.

Source: Computerworld. Analysis and adaptation: ForgeNEX.