Most SAP users surveyed see potential in the company’s AI offering, but only a small minority say they use it today. A UK and Ireland SAP user-group study also finds widespread concern about licensing complexity, putting the commercial terms alongside the technology as a test of adoption.
SAP Watch analysis
What happened
The study surveyed 460 members of the UK and Ireland SAP User Group (UKISUG). Diginomica reports that 87% said SAP’s Business AI offering could enhance their organisations’ use of SAP, while the same share worried that licensing had become more complex with SAP Business Technology Platform and its newer AI offerings.
Only 3% of respondents said they currently use SAP Business AI; 67% said they plan to do so in the future. Familiarity remains limited: 43% said they were familiar with SAP’s AI portfolio. The findings appeared alongside SAP TechEd, according to Diginomica’s report.
Why it matters
The survey captures a telling gap between perceived potential and present use. Interest may be there, but licensing complexity and limited familiarity could make it harder for customers to work out what to adopt, what it costs and whether it is worth scaling. For business software, the route from promising feature to everyday tool is often paved with procurement questions, not just product demos.
These are the views of 460 user-group members, not a measure of every SAP customer. Still, they give SAP a fairly clear message: customers want value, but also simpler and more predictable pricing and better guidance.
Our read
The encouraging headline is that users can see a role for SAP’s AI. The less comfortable one is that only 3% of those surveyed currently use Business AI. That is not proof of a product problem, but it does make clarity on licensing and practical use cases part of the adoption story. “We plan to” is a promising sentence; it is not yet a purchase order.
What to watch
- Whether SAP clarifies pricing, licensing, credits and consumption for its AI offerings.
- Whether familiarity and actual use rise as customers move from experimentation to wider deployment.
- Whether future UKISUG research finds that planned adoption turns into sustained use.
Discussion spark: Should SAP prioritise making AI licensing simpler and more predictable, or is it reasonable to expect customers to navigate complexity for tools they already see as valuable?
Sources and evidence
- Want to hear more about Enterprise AI? (30 October 2026, 14:05 UTC)
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