SAP Sapphire Madrid 2026: AI transforms ERP into autonomous enterprise

Islet participated in SAP Sapphire Madrid 2026 with more than 9200 customers, partners, and experts, and we got to hear where SAP is headed – and above all, what it means for SAP customers.

Last year, SAP TechEd Berlin talked about how artificial intelligence is transitioning from chatbots to acting agents. Now, in Madrid, SAP took this vision much further: the goal is an entire autonomous company where artificial intelligence not only assists but also performs.

Moving from AI hype to AI action

The general theme of SAP Sapphire 2026 was clear and familiar: we move from speech to action. Christian Klein, President and CEO of SAP, summed up the message in his opening speech: almost every company is already using AI, but few experience genuine business benefits from it. The reason is not technology, but the context and implementation.

At enterprise level, the use of AI requires a deep understanding of business processes, data and management models. This is where SAP is in a unique position: 50 years of ERP expertise is combined with modern artificial intelligence. The Madrid event also highlighted a particularly European perspective: regulation, data sovereignty and information security were strongly featured – topics that resonate strongly in our customers’ everyday lives.

1. Joule Work – a new way of working with SAP

The biggest single change in SAP’s user experience is Joule Work. Instead of navigating between different applications and menus, user simply tells Joule what they want to achieve, and Joule coordinates the necessary agents and workflows in the background.

A practical example: the finance team no longer manually opens the system for posting, reconciliation and error correction. The new Autonomous Close Assistant takes care of these automatically, significantly shortening the monthly financial closing process.

Joule Work is currently available through the SAP Early Adopter Care program, with a broader rollout planned for the second half of 2026.

2. SAP Autonomous Suite – 200+ agents for different functions

Joule Work is the interface under which the SAP Autonomous Suite operates: more than 200 specialized AI agents and more than 50 Joule assistants embedded in finance, procurement, supply chain, HR, and customer experience processes.

Each agent is designed to understand SAP business data and processes, not just common language. This is a key difference compared to AI solutions in general: agents operate in the company’s own processes, with their own data, according to their own rules.

Industry-specific examples (Industry AI) were also presented in Madrid: for example, the energy company RWE uses AI agents to analyze maintenance problems in offshore wind turbines, saving an average of 90 minutes per turbine repair.

3. SAP Business AI Platform – Business AI Platform

Even the best AI tools are useless if the data underneath them is scattered. SAP is responding to this with the new SAP Business AI Platform, which combines SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Business Data Cloud, and Business AI into a single entity.

What does this mean in practice for an IT manager or technology decision-maker?

Unified data context: SAP and non-SAP data are combined into a single level of management. AI agents automatically understand the company’s processes, history, and rules.
Manageability: One layer of control to control all AI tools – securely and auditably.
Build-ready: The new Joule Studio 2.0 tool allows you to build customized AI solutions that automatically inherit the company’s data specifications without the need for complex coding.

4. European sovereignty – an important message for Finland

SAP strongly communicates to European audiences that:

Mistral Plus is now generally available on SAP’s sovereign cloud – a European alternative to an AI model.
SAP launched the four-step EU AI Cloud framework for regulated industries (financial, energy, defense, and public).

SAP is actively investing in enabling European companies to leverage AI within their own regulatory requirements.

What does this mean for SAP customers?

SAP Sapphire 2026 confirmed that AI is at the core of the ERP of the future. Together, Joule Work, Autonomous Suite and Business AI Platform, create a platform that is changing the way people and systems work together.

But as SAP CEO Christian Klein emphasized: technology alone does not create value. Moving on the path of an autonomous company requires change management, process renewal and end-user readiness. Joule agents will not produce results if the processes are not in order or the data is scattered in different systems.

At Islet, we help our customers build a sustainable foundation – a clean core strategy, a modern cloud architecture and a unified data framework – on which AI can be built.

Want to hear what SAP Sapphire announcements mean for your business? Contact us and let’s make a plan together for your transition towards an autonomous company.