SAP highlights its autonomous enterprise, Joule agent vision, acquires TechWolf

SAP took its Joule Work and Joule Assistants for a spin as it courts enterprises to build on its autonomous enterprise vision. Separately, SAP said it has acquired TechWolf, which provides an AI-native approach to workforce training, skills and hiring.

At SAP Connect in Las Vegas, CEO Christian Klein said its SAP Autonomous Suite featured early customers such as Novartis, Nestle and PwC. SAP Autonomous Suite is built on the SAP Business AI Platform.

In the big picture, SAP, like other enterprise software vendors, is hoping to be a broad platform where customers build their AI agents and run their businesses. Novartis co-developed and launched a pilot of SAP Joule Sourcing Assistant. PwC highlighted SAP's Billing Assistant.

• SAP CEO Klein: Our AI agents want to solve the complex business processes

For SAP, agentic AI boils down to a more accessible user interface and conversational approach powered by its SAP Knowledge Graph. SAP also added that its Joule agents will be able to connect to third party AI agents and systems.

Much of what's announced at Connect will be available in SAP's Early Adopter Care program in the first quarter of 2027 with some offerings landed in the fourth quarter of 2026. Little of the announcements covered products that were generally available now.

As for the TechWolf acquisition, SAP said the deal will bolster SAP SuccessFactors, Joule and other parts of SAP's platform. TechWolf maps human capital against corporate strategy to determine where to hire, retrain and deploy people.

Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller said: "SAP leveled up its skill capabilities with the acquisition of TechWolf. Skills are becoming ever more critical to transform workforces successfully in the AI era."

Here's a look some of what SAP announced at Connect. Overall, SAP moved to deepen integration with SAP Autonomous Suite and Cloud ERP.

• SAP launched SAP Pay, a payment service embedded in SAP Cloud ERP applications. SAP is powered by Tereina, a regulated payment-service provider and SAP subsidiary. SAP Pay enables the company to automate payments within SAP Cloud ERP and reconcile them. SAP Pay is generally available.
• Advanced Joule Agents now support product design, collaboration with suppliers, supply planning, manufacturing, logistics, and asset maintenance.
• SAP introduces SAP Enterprise Financial Consolidation, combining statutory and management data with AI assistants for faster, more accurate reporting. SAP also said Joule Assistants are available for accounting, revenue, project management and compliance.
• SAP Ariba integrates Moody’s risk data for real-time supplier risk monitoring at the point of procurement. Joule assistants can automate spend, analytics, contingent workforce management and supplier risk assessment.
• SAP CX gets Joule assistants for marketing, sales, service and operations. SAP Concur micro-apps facilitate expense, invoice and permissions management.
• SAP SuccessFactors adds AI-driven workforce planning, benefits support and learning tools for employee development. There's also integration with WalkMe Learning Arc.

Jens Hungershausen, Chairman of the German-Speaking SAP User Group (DSAG), said there "is still a gap between the vision, the available solutions, and actual customer benefits" when it comes to SAP's autonomous enterprise vision.

"AI, GenAI, and automation solutions must be evaluated based on whether they support robust use cases, actually improve business processes, and can be integrated into existing SAP and non-SAP landscapes without disproportionate effort," said Hungershausen in a statement.

In a statement, DSAG said SAP's latest Joule offerings are interesting, but "there is still a lack of reliable customer experiences with Joule Work and Joule Work Desktop."