DSAG: SAP customer spending selective, AI drags

SAP customers are being more selective in their spending, moving slowly to S/4HANA and often deciding to extend maintenance for on-premises deployments, according to the German-speaking SAP User Group (DSAG) 2026 investment report. And if these SAP customers are pursuing AI, they are often going with non-SAP vendors.

The DSAG Investment Report 2026 outlines the state of enterprise spending but also illustrates the broader challenges in ERP. Costs matter. Returns matter more. And it's unclear whether SAP's efforts in AI such as its Joule agents are seeing a groundswell of demand. The biggest limiting factor with SAP's AI strategy is that it requires enterprises to move to the cloud.

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First, it's worth noting a few wrinkles in the investment survey. In 2025, SAP conducted the investment report and collected responses from fewer large companies. DSAG had previously conducted the survey. With DSAG conducting the 2026 survey, more large enterprises are reflected. However, Jens Hungershausen, DSAG Chairman of the Board, noted that public sector was heavily represented.

The survey also reflects companies surveyed in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH) so doesn't have a global sample. In other words, the survey reflects SAP's home turf.

By the numbers:

• 43% of respondents said they will increase their SAP spending with 26% keeping budgets the same and 28% decreasing spending. Economic concerns, energy prices and geopolitical uncertainties are postponing investments.
• 36% said SAP's relevance is increasing and 48% say it's remaining the same.
• 79% said cost effectiveness in SAP software was the biggest challenge on par with economic conditions. SAP's license and contract design was cited as a challenge by 70% of respondents.
• 42% of respondents plan to make high and medium investments in S/4HANA (on premises), while 22% want to invest high and medium budgets in the private cloud version and 6% going for public cloud.
• 49% plan to extend maintenance for SAP ECC but complete the migration to SAP S/4HANA by 2030. 37% plan to migrate by 2027.
• 24% of respondents said they use SAP's Integrated Toolchain, which includes Cloud ALM, Signavio, LeanIX and WalkMe, at least partially and 39% plan to use it.

That backdrop also sheds light on AI investments. DSAG respondents are looking for returns and only 43% of SAP customers have already implemented AI use cases. Of those implementing AI, many customers are going outside of what SAP is offering. One bright spot is that SAP is seeing more AI proof-of-concept projects.

“These figures should be viewed in the context of the survey basis and the varying complexity of application scenarios. Different requirements apply to a use case in the SAP environment than to the use of, for example, standard solutions based on large language models,” says Hungershausen.

That AI deployment percentage is worth watching going forward. Respondents to the DSAG survey are struggling to use AI in business processes. Nevertheless, non-SAP software is getting a strong look in AI projects. What remains to be seen is whether customers look to go over the top of SAP's ERP and abstract it away.

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