SAP looks to shape the autonomous enterprise

SAP announced its biggest move on AI and the future of enterprise software at last week’s Sapphire conference and customer event in Orlando, FL.

AI agents will drive the future of HR tech, and employees, as well as other enterprise users, will navigate fewer systems by querying the system via natural language to leverage interconnected agentic processes to get work done.

The Orlando event featured SAP’s new “autonomous enterprise” strategy, a system built around agents capable of orchestrating and executing end-to-end business processes across HR and other functions in SAP’s wheelhouse, such as finance and supply chain.

The autonomous enterprise is “execution with more automation, more efficiency powered by AI,” according to Dan Beck, GM and chief product officer of SAP SuccessFactors.

SAP is “really embracing all things AI and really redefining much of how enterprises run,” he told HR Brew. “From a system of record to a system of execution.”

AI-powered SuccessFactors. Beck pointed to the expanding system of SAP’s Joule-powered AI assistants and agents (of which there are 62 and 14) inside its SuccessFactors HCM. He compared this release to the single agent released in 2025. Several new assistants focus on entire HR workflows like payroll, recruiting, workforce planning, onboarding, and skills development.

The quantity and functionality of SAP’s newest AI tools announced last week is only part of the story. The autonomous enterprise vision for the software company involves serving customers beyond the platform.

“The world is heterogeneous, and you need an open platform that is adhering to standards. Now, we would prefer clients use our platform to build out their agent ambitions, and we have all of that to offer our customers,” Beck said. “But I think the broad point is it’s not just within the boundaries of the SAP apps. It’s not just within the boundaries of SuccessFactors. The autonomous enterprise is proactive and across the landscape, playing nice in the sandbox.”

SAP tools will rely on agent-to-agent protocols and other collaborations with other popular AI-powered work tech like Outlook or Salesforce to help customers connect their external tools to the SAP offerings, which, Beck contends, enriches the data powering the SAP tools and improves the experience for customers.

Beck told HR Brew that SAP agents will also increasingly execute workflows on behalf of users. For HR pros, that can look like agentic onboarding workflows, AI-powered workforce planning, and autonomous payroll.

Payroll. The most “mission critical” systems, he said, will be transformed by autonomous enterprise. Beck highlighted new autonomous payroll capabilities designed to help organizations

“If you have an issue with a deduction code, it shows up in payroll. If you have an issue with a dependent or a dependent election, it shows up in payroll. If you have an issue with time not being approved, it will manifest as something not being on your paycheck,” Beck said. “So quite often, we find payroll as that linchpin application.”

The announcements from Sapphire reflect the intensifying AI arms race in enterprise HR technology. Rival Workday also spent the last year aggressively responding to the AI transformation, repositioning its HCM suites around data, agents, and AI orchestration.