The business challenges we are facing today have not changed, but the opportunities are radically different due to artificial intelligence (AI). The actual speed of change has, itself, changed, and AI is now the third great wave of technological transformation, after the introduction of personal computers and the internet.

This was according to Timo Elliott, Vice President and Global Innovation Evangelist, SAP, who was speaking at SAPHILA 2025, the biennial premier SAP user conference for the African SAP User Group (AFSUG), which took place recently at Sun City in South Africa’s North West Province. During Elliott’s keynote session, he took an in-depth look at how and why the speed of change has increased, because AI is becoming increasingly embedded into technology.

“AI is incredibly powerful, but you can end up with some very strange results if you don’t harness it correctly,” he noted, “and rapid technological change and disruption is coming to your business – it’s not going to stop. We need AI to accelerate innovation and at SAP, where we have been doing AI for a long time, we want to be at the heart of your innovation strategy.”

Using the analogy of early motor vehicles that were initially created by hand, Elliott clarified that in today’s technology, we need to use AI to move to efficient, modern assembly lines: “Our job at SAP is to provide you with the means to build the proverbial cars. In this regard, SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) is the foundation for SAP innovation, and it includes the use of AI.”

SAP BTP is a multi-cloud platform that empowers users with generative AI-powered development, automation, integration data and analytics across both SAP and non-SAP applications.

Elliott explained that, as the foundation for SAP innovation, SAP BTP incorporates transactional systems to create transformational insights, which in turn result in systems of AI agents, as follows.

·      Transactional systems: For 50 years, SAP has connected and optimised core business processes with unparalleled applications and a technology platform that generates semantically rich data that powers the world economy.

·      Transformational insights: By centralising unmatched data from both SAP and non-SAP sources into a unified semantic layer, SAP unlocks insights, advanced analytics and AI capabilities to empower businesses to drive intelligent growth and innovation.

·      Systems of AI agents: Powered by accurate data from both SAP and non-SAP sources, SAP’s unrivalled AI agents deliver a unique advantage in cross-function collaboration, maximising integrated data to enable smarter decisions and transformative outcomes.

Elliott continued: “What’s holding us back is the time, skills and resources to be able to exploit this technology. For example, in SAP Build, we have a tool that brings agile application development and customisation, in everyday language, vastly accelerating innovation. But SAP Build is not only for global companies with global issues.”

He went on to describe how SAP Build was used by Swiss non-profit organisation Essen für Alle (Food for All) to reduce food wastage and instead share leftover food with those in need. The application of SAP Build by Essen für Alle allowed for the release of 18 tons of food essentials per week, the distribution of 85,000 weekly food packages, and the management of 10,000 volunteers’ shifts to enable the required processes. 

“Essen für Alle used SAP Build to build its own app and give hope to the hungry with a more sustainable approach,” said Elliott. “This is an example of how the technology being used effectively allowed them to move faster in producing a result, by allowing the tech to do most of the heavy lifting.”

Giving another example used by a far larger company, Elliott next outlined how the National Grid Group - an electricity, natural gas and clean energy delivery company operating in the UK and the US, serving more than 20 million people - used SAP BPT to integrate its data transformation. 

“National Grid used SAP technology to make sense of its information and give it to the right people at the right time, across more than 250 interfaces within both the UK and the US for the company’s FY26 requirements. For its 2027 Financial Year, SAP technology will be used across over 400 interfaces in the US as part of the company’s Next GenERP implementation. 

“In addition, master data updates will be distributed to multiple downstream applications, while generative AI will allow for technical summarisations, knowledge articles and more. Here, the user can talk to the Gen AI as if they were talking to an expert who understands the deep tech. The use of SAP BPT can accelerate and optimise the tech itself,” Elliott stated. 

He added that SAP BTP provides an AI foundation for a generative AI hub, with everything a customer needs for orchestrating custom AI, and including a wide choice of models, grounding, data masking, filtering, prompt management and lifecycle management.

“It’s all built into the platform,” said Elliott, “allowing people to use AI to improve efficiencies and find or create new products. I can look for the information I need as though I was talking to a very knowledgeable salesperson or engineer, in natural language.”

He cited additional examples across industries and applications including heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC); supply chain management; oil and gas; and beverages, showing in one example how SAP technology is able to reduce time and costs spent on root cause analysis by up to 90 percent, and with a savings of 3,120 hours of headcount productivity each year: “It’s the impossible made possible!”  

“Because AI is so good we are now doing it ways that weren’t possible before, using generative AI to optimise volume/margin trade-off. It’s much more proactive and can work out price-elasticity curves and make suggestions as a self-improving system, cutting costs by getting rid of systems that are obsolete. When manual work is reduced, you allow your analysts to be more strategic with their time.”

Using the analogy of a staircase, he explained: “With AI, the questions are the same, but the answers are different. AI today is a bit like a manual staircase – but as the future unfolds, it will become more like an escalator, with the system automatically helping you get to the next level.

“It’s time to double down on a strong business cloud platform so that you can take advantage of the next big wave of the future – you want to be surfing it rather than being crushed,” Elliott concluded.