David Robinson, SAP North America's president, at the company's Manhattan offices.Joao-Pierre S. Ruth/InformationWeek

AI-powered changes to enterprises so far have largely been stepping stones toward broader transformation.

That's changing, according to David Robinson, president of SAP North America, who spoke with InformationWeek during a recent visit to SAP's Manhattan offices. 

Robinson said that after speaking with customers at SAP Sapphire in May, he saw a shift in how companies were thinking about AI. Many were starting to realize how the technology could transform their operations in functional rather than theoretical ways. 

"We're beyond just placing bets; we're more [focused] on how those bets reflect opportunities to take innovation and value to scale," he said.

Forging grounded plans for AI 

Robinson said SAP's customers were also curious about how AI, and generative AI in particular, will change industry processes and make an enterprise more competitive, differentiated and effective. 

While some of that transformation still needs time to marinate, AI has already fundamentally changed IT operating models, what it means to be an IT person, and the ability to reduce cost, risk, and time out of modernization work, Robinson said.

Related:How Anthropic is reordering SaaS — and where CIOs go next

Robinson said AI agents have matured in their ability to tackle certain business processes and could reshape how companies strategize. 

AI agents can analyze information, make recommendations and, in some cases, make proactive decisions with limited human intervention based on prior inputs.

Robinson said adding AI agents to production cycles may catalyze new ways to shorten time-to-delivery. 

He said that could make traditional feature-by-feature product roadmaps less important than "interoperability and the ability to have trusted, skilled agents."

Working AI into real-world operations

SAP has been doing its own work to further AI's intersection with the physical world. For example, SAP's Autonomous Enterprise initiative combines AI agents with an AI platform for data orchestration and workflows to support tasks a retailer might need, such as designing and producing personalized, monogrammed hats for consumers.

Robinson, who was promoted to his role in January after 22 years at the company, said feedback from CTOs and CIOs showed that many companies are resetting their AI agendas with the rollout of more features.

He also said some companies are consolidating older systems or evaluating how to maintain older, customized enterprise resource planning environments to take advantage of autonomous resources. "This is really a prerequisite for the future."

Though organizations are moving beyond baby steps with AI initiatives, they are taking moderate strides rather than full leaps into the technology, Robinson said. This shift raises broader market questions about incorporating AI capabilities into the next phases of business and the applications they use, he added. Enterprises are still figuring out how much they will let AI change how IT and businesses operate.

Related:CIOs caught in the middle as AI startups disrupt vertical Saas

"Until this point, there has been a lot of experimentation with AI … with providers of service, providers of models, other types of very discrete AI, all trying to demonstrate their expertise," he said. Now there is a desire to see how AI might update business processes and what the outcome quality looks like, Robinson said.

He added that companies now see the importance of choosing different AI models for specific uses across the broader enterprise ecosystem. "It's not how good the models are, but how well you curate all of those models and are able to adapt," Robinson said.

About the Author