SAP CFO calls for AI to advance beyond chatbots into complex business processes

Jul 23, 2026

SAP CFO Dominik Asam said enterprise AI must advance beyond relatively low-risk chatbots and coding tools into complex business processes such as finance and supply chains, where errors can compound across multiple steps. He said such applications require clean, governed company data, high reliability and careful cost control rather than automatic reliance on the most powerful AI model. Separately, SAP and Oxford Economics’ Value of AI Report 2026 found that surveyed businesses expected an average return of 21% on their AI investments in 2026, up from 16% in 2025. SAP is also concentrating new hiring on core AI roles and suspending non-AI business travel while keeping customer-facing activities and critical AI initiatives funded.

SAP AI spending reallocation

▪SAP is concentrating new hiring exclusively on core AI roles while keeping customer-facing activities and critical AI initiatives fully funded.
▪SAP is reallocating its spending and research efforts toward agentic AI, which includes halting non-AI hiring and suspending non-AI business travel.

Enterprise AI ROI growth

▪SAP and Oxford Economics’ survey found that average reported AI spending among the businesses surveyed rose to $28 million in 2026, from $26.7 million in 2025.
▪According to SAP and Oxford Economics’ Value of AI Report 2026, surveyed companies expected an average return on their AI investments of 21% in 2026, up from 16% in 2025.

Agentic AI adoption expectations

▪According to the SAP and Oxford Economics report, surveyed businesses expected the average return from agentic AI investments to reach $17.6 million within two years, more than quadrupling from the previous year’s estimate of $4.3 million.
▪While 83% of surveyed businesses said agentic AI had moderate to very high potential to transform their organization, only 3% said their organization was fully prepared for it.

AI governance readiness gaps

▪According to the SAP and Oxford Economics report, only 12% of surveyed businesses said their skills or frameworks were fully ready to govern AI.
▪According to the SAP and Oxford Economics report, 38% of surveyed organizations said they had no human-in-the-loop process for agentic workflows.

Data quality deployment barriers

▪According to the SAP and Oxford Economics report, 79% of surveyed businesses said they had experienced rework, delays or backlogs caused by low-quality AI outputs. The report also found that 73% of surveyed businesses faced challenges involving incomplete data.
▪SAP CFO Dominik Asam said enterprise AI must move beyond chatbots and coding tools into complex business processes, where clean, governed data, reliability and cost control matter more than access to the most powerful model.