“Under the policy, only Al-related hiring, customer-facing travel and trips directly linked to the company's Al initiatives or mission-critical employee Al training are exempt, reflecting SAP's focus on "be disciplined in how we spend" while expanding its Al capabilities.”
It will be interesting to see if SAP can turn into the basis for companies that use AI heavily or if companies that use AI heavily will prefer to replace SAP.
Who are the contenders that start fresh with focus on AI?
One that comes to mind is IONOS. They seem to be in the process of building something like a "SAP in the times of AI" from the ground up. Starting with the demands of SMEs. It looks like an interesting approach to me: Having a "knowledge base" for each customer, initially filled with the data from the website. Then let the customers add more data. Then offer agents that do work for the customers. Answer calls and emails and do marketing for example.
I have in mind what I think is a very strong framework to allow companies to replace legacy ERPs quickly with AI help. I guess I should get on with it and publish something!
> It will be interesting to see if SAP can turn into the basis for companies that use AI heavily or if companies that use AI heavily will prefer to replace SAP.
Considering the human and institutional complexity of implementing ERP, CRM, whatever the hell Concur is supposed to be, etc. I'd bet on most organisations implementing AI around and with those systems instead of replacing them with something vibecoded / "AI native" vendors.
So will AI be what finally kills SAP, making world a little bit better? ;-)
Seems like they're doing fine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP#mwAeo
So they are using AI to run the company, and AI allocated all the money to AI?
TL;DR:
“Under the policy, only Al-related hiring, customer-facing travel and trips directly linked to the company's Al initiatives or mission-critical employee Al training are exempt, reflecting SAP's focus on "be disciplined in how we spend" while expanding its Al capabilities.”
no-paywall: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49222851
It will be interesting to see if SAP can turn into the basis for companies that use AI heavily or if companies that use AI heavily will prefer to replace SAP.
Who are the contenders that start fresh with focus on AI?
One that comes to mind is IONOS. They seem to be in the process of building something like a "SAP in the times of AI" from the ground up. Starting with the demands of SMEs. It looks like an interesting approach to me: Having a "knowledge base" for each customer, initially filled with the data from the website. Then let the customers add more data. Then offer agents that do work for the customers. Answer calls and emails and do marketing for example.
I have in mind what I think is a very strong framework to allow companies to replace legacy ERPs quickly with AI help. I guess I should get on with it and publish something!
> It will be interesting to see if SAP can turn into the basis for companies that use AI heavily or if companies that use AI heavily will prefer to replace SAP.
Considering the human and institutional complexity of implementing ERP, CRM, whatever the hell Concur is supposed to be, etc. I'd bet on most organisations implementing AI around and with those systems instead of replacing them with something vibecoded / "AI native" vendors.
Like their systems aren't shitty enough.
In other words, AI is now driving their budget decisions.
teach everyone they live in a lobster bucket, and suddenly everyones a lobster.
If you believe that AI does add to productivity gains, say equivalent to adding 10-20% employees, would you do anything differently than SAP?