At SAP Connect 2026 in Las Vegas, SAP presented new AI capabilities it says can go beyond analyzing data and making recommendations to actually execute business processes under human supervision. The company framed these developments as steps toward the "autonomous enterprise," where AI participates directly in day-to-day operations across functions.
What the new Joule Assistants do
The Joule Assistants cover finance, procurement, human resources, sales and supply chain tasks. Christian Klein, CEO of SAP SE, called the announcements "a major breakthrough in enterprise AI," saying the Joule and the SAP Autonomous Suite, built on the SAP Business AI Platform, help companies such as Novartis, Nestlé and PwC connect intelligence across business functions to deliver reliable outcomes.
Selected customer examples and early results:
- Novartis: Christoph Buerki, Head of Procurement at Novartis, described a jointly developed pilot of the SAP Joule Sourcing Assistant. He said their vision is for AI agents to take over manual, time-consuming tasks so procurement professionals can focus on strategy and supplier relationships.
- PwC: Jill Notz, leader for accounting and business services at PwC, said the Billing Assistant can fundamentally change billing processes by identifying anomalies and correcting accounting errors before invoices are sent.
Joule Work and the SAP Knowledge Graph
SAP has begun rolling out Joule Work to customers. This AI-powered interface lets employees interact with SAP systems using natural language and complete complex tasks from a single surface that can access both SAP and external data sources. One foundation of the solution is the SAP Knowledge Graph, which maps relationships among more than seven million data fields to ensure responses reflect business context rather than raw data alone.
SAP already runs Joule Work internally for about 110,000 employees. The company reports an average productivity improvement of 20 percent in finance, HR and procurement processes where the system is used.
Process automation use cases
The new Joule Assistants take on tasks that today require significant manual work across several domains:
- Finance: support for revenue accounting automation, preparation of disclosures and international trade compliance. Early deployments of the International Trade Assistant reduced the workload for product trade classification by up to 50 percent.
- Supply chain: planners can convert hours-long disruption handling into an approvable, automated remediation flow across planning, manufacturing and logistics.
- HR: leaders can better identify workforce shortfall remedies while employees receive more personalized, data-informed decisions about benefits.
- Procurement: decision-makers can spot savings opportunities using industry benchmarks and more effectively manage contingent labor lifecycles.
- Customer engagement and sales: AI-supported campaigns, quote processes and service workflows turn interactions into business opportunities.
- Industry-specific applications: SAP and its customers apply AI to manufacturing, retail, commodities trading and asset-intensive industries for decision support, automation of routine tasks and resilience improvement.
Governance, access control and AI identities
Wider deployment of AI agents raises new security and governance needs: companies must control precisely what data and business processes autonomous systems can access and what actions they can perform. To that end, SAP introduced the Access Governance and Security Assistant, extending identity and access management to AI agents. The solution handles entitlement management, privileged access oversight and continuous compliance checks, applying a unified policy model to human and AI identities.
SAP also presented a Governance Assistant that aggregates risk and control information across systems, aiming to shift organizations from periodic audits to continuous risk and compliance monitoring.
New services and partnerships
- SAP Pay: SAP announced SAP Pay, its entry into payment services. Built on Tereina technology, SAP Pay integrates payment execution and reconciliation directly into SAP Cloud ERP so an approved invoice can trigger payment and automatic reconciliation within the same business flow. SAP Pay is currently available in the United States and the United Kingdom.
- Moody’s Corporation: a new partnership with Moody’s enables Moody’s supplier risk monitoring data to be integrated into SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance. This integration is intended to support continuous risk monitoring, allowing Joule AI agents to flag supplier risk signals before actual disruptions occur.
Platform, data quality and observability
The SAP Business AI Platform provides a unified environment for developing, customizing and governing AI solutions across SAP and external systems. Joule Studio enables business users and developers to create or extend AI capabilities—from low-code/no-code to professional developer environments—using more than 70 different AI models.
Trusted data is central to autonomous operation: SAP Reltio, part of the SAP Business Data Cloud, consolidates customer, supplier and product data from SAP and external systems into a unified business view so AI agents rely on consistent data. SAP Signavio’s new capabilities track AI agent performance and identify processes where AI can deliver the most value. The AI Agent Hub available in SAP LeanIX provides a central registry for AI agents in enterprises, supporting transparency, auditability and regulated operation.
Conclusion
Announcements at SAP Connect 2026 show SAP positioning AI not as a standalone tool but as an active, governed participant in everyday business processes. Joule Assistants, Joule Work, expanded access governance and new integrations and partnerships aim to advance the autonomous enterprise—while underscoring that data quality, access control, security and human oversight remain critical. As Hidvégi Péter, CEO of SAP Hungary, put it: the next step for AI is moving from pilots into day-to-day operations, which requires reliable, auditable AI that operates in business context.
