Adrian Wenner
This glossary provides a concise and easy-to-understand summary of the most important terms from SAP Sapphire 2026. It explains the new technologies, platforms, and concepts related to SAP’s vision of the Autonomous Enterprise—from the SAP Business AI Platform and Joule to AI agents and modern data platforms. This gives readers a quick overview of the key innovations at Sapphire 2026.
Table of contents
Preface to the Glossary
At the SAPPHIRE 2026 in Orlando , it became clear that SAP is positioning itself as a leading provider of agent-based enterprise AI. CEO Christian Klein emphasized that for business-critical processes, “almost right simply isn’t good enough.” AI must act with precision, in compliance with regulations, and in a fully traceable manner.
To deliver on this promise, SAP introduced a whole range of new terms in Orlando, from the SAP Business AI Platform and the SAP Autonomous Suite to concepts such as Company Memory and Context Layer. Anyone who wants to follow the keynote and the announcements can’t avoid this new vocabulary. These terms explain how SAP intends to implement its core promise of precise, compliant, and traceable AI—both technically and organizationally. That’s exactly why this glossary exists. It lists the most important terms presented at SAPPHIRE 2026 in alphabetical order and makes them understandable even for those who weren’t there in person.
Related:
Feature Updates for Q1 & Q2 2026
The A2A protocol complements MCP by standardizing direct, bidirectional communication between different AI agents—even across vendor boundaries. Within Joule Work and Joule Studio, A2A enables third-party agents to securely connect to Joule agents and vice versa, enabling agents from different ecosystems to collaborate in shared business processes. This positions SAP as an interoperable hub in an increasingly multi-vendor agent landscape. General availability of the enhanced A2A capabilities in Joule is scheduled for Q4 2026.
The Autonomous Enterprise is SAP's overarching vision, unveiled at Sapphire 2026, in which AI assistants and agents work closely with employees to provide role-specific support for business processes.
It consists of four components:
- Joule Work as a new level of interaction,
- the SAP Autonomous Suite, with its AI-powered core areas of Finance, Spend, HCM, CX, and Supply Chain,
- the SAP Business AI Platform as the technological foundation, as well as
- industry-specific AI scenarios. The concept is available to both public and private cloud ERP customers. The goal is to relieve employees of routine tasks while AI agents coordinate and execute operational processes in the background.
The Generative AI Hub is part of SAP AI Core and offers centralized model management and flexible deployment and integrated development tools to scale AI apps and agents across the enterprise. It supports both SAP’s own Foundationmodels as well as multimodal third-party models via a single API, which can be combined with a company’s own data to create customized AI solutions. Built-in governance – end-to-end encryption, integration with SAP Cloud Identity Services, auditlogging , and compliance with GDPR, ISO 27001, and SOC 1/2—ensures a secure, compliance-compliant operation, and customer data is never used to train third-party models. Additionally, features such as automated prompt optimization, orchestration, and an interactive playground reduce the timetomarket for production-ready AI applications.
With Industry AI, SAP is introducing industry-specific AI solutions that combine applications, data models, and autonomous AI agents (Joule Agents). The goal is to create complete end-to-end processes across departmental boundaries and break down data silos. At launch, there are seven application areas, including asset management, production, commodities trading, project management, regulated manufacturing, revenue growth, and unified commerce. The solutions are initially tailored to specific industries but will be gradually expanded to other sectors. Joule Assistants coordinate various specialized AI agents to support decision-making, optimize processes, and improve collaboration between business units. With this approach, SAP is pursuing its vision of increasingly autonomous business processes across various industries.
Joule Agents are individual, specialized AI agents that independently perform specific, clearly defined tasks within a business process, such as invoice verification, data reconciliation, or scheduling. They are generally not controlled directly by humans but are coordinated by a higher-level Joule Assistant, which, depending on the objective, may assign multiple agents . For their business context, they access a unified, trustworthy data layer in the SAP Business Data Cloud—which is enriched with business semantics by the SAP Knowledge Graph—and can also utilize the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Governance, monitoring, and control of all deployed agents are managed centrally via the SAP AI Agent Hub, which, according to SAP, can accelerate multi-step workflows by up to 75%. Furthere Information
Joule Assistants are function- or role-based AI-“team members” that serve as central points of contact within Joule Work. They understand a user’s business context and coordinate the appropriate Joule Agentsto automate complex, cross-functional tasks. In doing so, they form the orchestration layer between humans and the individual AI agents. Further Ininformation
The integrated development environment (IDE) for AI agents and workflows within the SAP Business AI Platform. Developers create agent-based applications that can access SAP business logic and data.
The platform’s AI-first development environment; translates business intent expressed in natural language into executable agents, applications, or workflows—from no-code to pro-code.
Joule Work is a centralized, dynamic workspace that brings together data, applications, and agent workflows in one place, so teams no longer have to switch between systems or manually coordinate tasks. Users use conversations to describe what they want to achieve, while Joule Assistants provide relevant insights, automate routine tasks, and Joule Agents across systems and vendors.
The goal is to reduce navigation and system switching so that teams can focus on decisions and results rather than on process coordination.
MCP is an open standard that serves as a secure interface between AI agents or assistants and external tools, data sources, or backend systems. Within the SAP stack, Joule, among others, uses Agents, Joule Studio (with its own “MCP Builder”) and SAP Integration Suite use MCP to integrate third-party tools and ensure agent interoperability. The SAP AI Agent Hub handles the governancerole by ensuring that only verified MCP servers are allowed to run in production. A dedicated “ABAP MCP” is also being introduced in the ABAP development environment, which provides AI coding assistants with direct, context-aware access to SAPbackends . Further Information
The SAP AI Agent Hub is a vendor-neutral command center that serves as a central entry point for discovery, inventory, governance , and evaluation of all AI agents, LLMs, and MCP servers across the enterprise—regardless of whether they are from SAP, Microsoft, Google, AWS, Databricks , or ServiceNow. Core features include an automated AI registry, a formal verification and compliance workflow, identity and access control (only verified MCP servers are allowed to run in production), and AIobservability for tracking session histories, tool calls, and rootcauseanalysis. Agent Mining also allows you to verify whether agents are following their intended execution path, while the integration with SAP SuccessFactors shows which teams and skills are affected by agent deployment. This enables the hub to go beyond mere discovery and provide deeper architecture and business processgovernancethan comparable solutions from other vendors. than comparable solutions from other providers.
SAP AI Core is a service of the SAP Business Technology Platformthat enables the execution and operation of AI assets in a standardized, scalable, and hyperscaler—from pipeline execution (e.g., model training, batch inference) to deployment of trained models as web services to the complete lifecycle management of AI scenarios via a unified API. It supports multitenancy to isolate AI assets between clients and can be integrated into existing cloud infrastructure to deliver AI content in the SAP BTP Marketplace. Through the integrated Generative AI Hub , users also gain access to generative AI models as well as prompt development and lifecycle management.
SAP AI Services and Models includes enterprise-ready generative AI capabilities (Services) as well as fully managed, large-scale models (Models) based on jdecadeseof SAP’s own code, data, and process knowledge, and also integrate third-party frontier models. The services enable developers to build AI applications and ABAP extensions that automate workflows, deliver predictive insights, and improve decision-making. By being anchored in SAP metadata and context, they deliver more accurate, trustworthy results than generic models while reducing integration effort and costs. Additionally, they enable scalable, tabular prediction workflows across a unified model for all business areas and scenarios.
SAP Autonomous Suite is an integrated, modular application suite in which Joule Work, AI agents and assistants, data, and applications collaborate across domains to provide end-to-end business processes across five core areas. It is based on four principles: collaboration between humans and AI with clear control and accountability, AI actions based on real business data rather than generic models, decades of SAP process and industry expertise, and enterprise-gradee governancece with built-in compliance andand Auditabilityit. The goal is a resilient, “AI-native” mode of operation with true autonomous execution rather than isolated individual applications.
SAP Business AI Platform is the technological foundation of the Autonomous Enterprise and combines centralized AIcomponents from SAP: Joule, Joule Studio, SAP Domain Models, SAP Business Data Cloud, the SAP Knowledge Graph, the SAP AI Agent Hub as well as GGovernance– and security features. It ensures that agents and applications consistently access trusted corporate data while adhering to company-wide policies. Further information
SAP BDC is SAP's unified data platform, on which analytics, planning, and AI agents operate on the same, governance-compliant data products. New agent-based capabilities make it possible to create data products using natural language, configure analysis and planning models, and automatically generate dashboards—all without having to manually operate multiple tools. SAP HANA Cloud is now natively integrated into SAP BDC and serves as a shared in-memory database for vectors, graphs, and relational data. SAP BDC Connect also enables zero-copy integrations with hyperscalers such as AWS, and with the planned acquisition of Reltio , master data management across SAP and non-SAP systems is set to be further strengthened. SAP BDC thus forms the common data foundation upon which Joule and Joule Agents operate. Further information & Background
SAP Domain Models are native SAPFoundationmodels that are trained on SAP code, data, metadata, documented best practices, and business processes and are continuously updated—unlike general Foundationmodels, they achieve a depth of proprietary SAP knowledge that generic, publicly trained-only models cannot provide. Joule uses them to accurately answer natural-language queries about SAP application data, while Joule Studio uses them to help developers create, extend, and modernize code. The answers are grounded in the SAP Knowledge Graph, live data, and historical SAP code, which delivers more precise and trustworthy results than generic models. Additionally, SAP-managed governance and policyguidelines ensure a secure, complianceAI deployment in the automation of SAP workflows.
SAP Enterprise Planning is a new planning solution based on SAP Business Data Cloud and SAP Analytics Cloud that uses Joule Agents directly into planning processes. Instead of one-off planning cycles, it enables continuous planning: agents detect market changes, assess their impact on KPIs, simulate scenarios, and automatically implement decisions into operational workflows. The solution is also used for specific planning areas such as workforce Planning (SAP SuccessFactors). In this way, SAP links strategic planning more closely with operational execution.
The SAP Integration Suite is an integration platform—as-a-Service (iPaaS) based on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) that seamlessly connects SAP and non-SAP systems, applications, data, and processes. It provides the technical foundation that enables AI agents to work across systems, exchange information, and execute processes end-to-end. New features for agent-based orchestration make it possible to coordinate AI agents across different systems and enable them to respond to business events in real time. By processing real-time data, AI applications and agents always have access to the latest business context, which improves. At the same time, new governanceand security features, such as the AI Gateway and the controlled provisioning of APIs ensure the secure and compliant use of AI. With the integration of Joule and other AI-powered features, integration development, monitoring, and troubleshooting are also significantly automated and simplified.
A semantic layer that links data, processes, relationships, and business logic across system boundaries, thereby providing AI agents with a machine-readable understanding of business contexts.
SAP-RPT-1.5 is the next version of SAP-RPT-1, the tabular AI model from the SAPFoundationModel family, which is trained on structured business data containing gaps or incomplete information. A new feature is the so-called “tabular Orchestration,” which includes retrieval-Augmented Prediction (RAP), in which customer data is specifically utilized at runtime to increase prediction accuracy. Additional components include a context selection module, model switching functionality, and an open model ecosystem (e.g., Nexus by Fundamental), and explainability features at the column and row levels. The model is provided via the SAP Generative AI Hub and is accessible via API.
Strategic AI Partnerships
At Sapphire 2026, SAP announced several AI partnerships: With Anthropic , Claude is intended to serve as the primary reasoningengine in agent-based SAP solutions (Finance, HR, Procurement, Supply Chain). With NVIDIA , OpenShell into the Joule Studioruntime to make agents more secure and provide additional governance . With n8n , Joule Studio gains visual workflow orchestration that combines agent-based capabilities with traditional process automation and runs entirely on SAP cloud infrastructure (relevant for GDPR/data residency). These partnerships underscore SAP’s strategy of integrating leading AI models and tools into its own platform via open protocols (MCP/A2A) rather than developing everything in-house.
List of Sources and Further Reading
Gupta, R. (May 2026). SAP Sapphire 2026 Key Announcements Summarized. LinkedIn. SAP Sapphire 2026 Key Announcements Summarized | Raja Gupta has published posts on this topic | LinkedIn
SAP. (May 12, 2026). SAP Sapphire 2026 Innovation News Guide. SAP Sapphire Innovation News Guide 2026 | SAP
SAP News. (May 12, 2026). SAP Unveils the Autonomous Enterprise. SAP Presents the Autonomous Enterprise | SAP Sapphire | SAP News Center
SAP News. (May 12, 2026). SAP Unveils the Autonomous Enterprise. SAP Unveils the Autonomous Enterprise | SAP Sapphire | SAP News Center
Talan. (2026). Top 5 Key Takeaways from SAP Sapphire 2026. Top 5 Key Takeaways from SAP Sapphire 2026 | Talan
Top 5 Announcements from SAP Sapphire 2026. (2026). SAP. Top 5 Announcements from SAP Sapphire 2026 | SAP
SAP Sapphire 2026: Agentic AI, Quality, and the Autonomous Enterprise. (2026). SAP Sapphire 2026: Agentic AI, Quality, and the Autonomous Enterprise
SAP Sapphire 2026: What the Announcements Actually Mean for Your SAP Roadmap. (2026). SAP Sapphire 2026: What the Announcements Actually Mean for Your SAP Roadmap
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