SAP intends to make its fees increasingly dependent on AI usage, as more tasks become automated and the number of human users tends to decline. Approximately 60 percent of cloud revenue is already based on value- and consumption-oriented metrics, emphasized SAP CEO Christian Klein. This share is expected to rise further. The company is following an industry trend, said Marcel Tietjen, technology expert at the consulting firm BearingPoint. While the idea is not new, it is becoming an economic necessity due to automation and AI.
Klein once again dismissed concerns regarding competition from AI developers. 'We see no negative impact.' BearingPoint expert Tietjen described speculations about the disappearance of traditional enterprise software as exaggerated. 'Anyone who believes that complex business logic, regulatory requirements, and legacy system landscapes can be replaced by AI interfaces underestimates the reality of large organizations.'
The AI developer Anthropic had raised questions about the future of traditional corporate software with the release of additional modules for its 'Claude' language model. Some investors subsequently pulled back from SAP and other providers. Compared to their record high in February 2025, shares of the Walldorf group have lost about half of their value.
(Report by Hakan Ersen, edited by Philipp Krach. For inquiries, please contact our editorial office at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and economics) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)
