SAP person group chair warns of AI low-hanging fruit dangers

The UK and Eire SAP Consumer Group (UKISUG) Join 25 convention has opened in Birmingham with a keynote session recognising the challenges enterprise face.

The person group itself has tailored to adjustments within the expertise market comparable to the appearance of synthetic intelligence (AI) in enterprise purposes and the financial local weather that has a profound impact on its members’ potential to ship worth with enterprise expertise.

In his keynote presentation, Conor Riordan, chair of UKISUG, mentioned: “As an organisation, we now have to alter, to place ourselves as we transfer from the previous to the brand new.”

The person group has a 2030 plan, recognising the shifts in enterprise software program. As an illustration, there’s the shift to no-code and low-code tooling, which has implications on the agility of enterprise software program growth. Riordan famous that the present enterprise local weather and geopolitical volatility means that there’s a large strain to cut back prices, resulting in cuts in coaching budgets and the problem of delivering extra with much less, including: “We have to have course of change.”

Shifting to a future the place organisations are utilizing knowledge to make extra reliable choices, Riordan famous that SAP is shifting to a dynamic ecosystem of purposes and AI, however the problem is how rapidly companies can begin profiting from the AI now obtainable of their enterprise purposes. “We see members say SAP AI will assist them,” Riordan mentioned.

However many are involved how the brand new expertise now obtainable will ship a return on funding (ROI). For Riordan, IT decision-makers should be cautious of tackling the so-called low-hanging fruit, the use circumstances that the business sells to the chief group: “It’s actually advanced work, and the low-hanging fruit will not be that low hanging. It should take years, not months, to ship worth.”

A ballot of delegates on the convention discovered that 78% of respondents are simply getting began with AI, whereas 29% say their AI initiatives have under-delivered.

“These items will not be straightforward,” Riordan mentioned, including that the problem is considered one of course of re-engineering and tradition change, and that he believes people should be on the centre of decision-making. “We ask companions to be cheap of their productiveness claims so we will all succeed collectively.”

The Worth of AI within the UK: Development, folks & knowledge from SAP and Oxford Economics, which was printed in October 2025, notes that prospects are investing £16m in AI on common this yr. The report’s authors predict this may enhance by 40% inside the subsequent two years. Nevertheless, the theme popping out of the keynote session at Connect25 is that few firms are actually utilizing AI.

One other huge subject coated in the course of the keynote is the top of help for SAP merchandise. With SAP’s 2027 upkeep deadline for SAP ECC 6.0 quick approaching, many organisations are actually embarking on their migration journey to SAP S/4Hana. Greater than half (54%) of respondents mentioned that having access to SAP’s AI choices will affect their future deployment of SAP.

Amongst attendees of Connect25, 49% mentioned they’re working in direction of the 2027 deadline. Riordan known as on SAP to assist prospects to maneuver to the cloud and construct a tangible enterprise case.

Throughout her keynote speech, Leila Romane, managing director of SAP UK & Eire, spoke concerning the AI alternative, saying: “We’re serving to prospects unleash new worth with enterprise AI.”

SAP’s technique is to drive enterprise worth by means of the ability of AI, knowledge and its enterprise purposes, with the SAP Cloud integral in SAP’s technique to ship AI-enablement throughout its enterprise software program suite. Romane mentioned SAP recognised that its prospects have been all at totally different levels of their cloud journey, including: “Our dedication is that can assist you transfer.”