Customer Success Keynote: Connected to Win: From Moment to Momentum | SAP Sapphire Madrid 2026

Please welcome to the stage, Manos.

Good morning, Madrid. It felt a little bit like wanting to do a little bit of headbanging. It's been a while since I've done that, right? I think we got the WalkMe party back here today. A lot of energy. A lot of energy, indeed. And good morning, Madrid. This is your keynote. This is our customer keynote. Thank you very much for making the time to come here. It's been great conversations that we've had throughout this couple of days, and hopefully this will continue also today. I think reflecting a little bit back, Thomas, from those conversations, we hear from our customers that disruption continues to be somehow the new normal, right? There is a lot happening out there. There is something happening at one part of the world, and the ripple effect is coming closer to our customers, disrupting. Sometimes there's a chain having new trade regulations being introduced, but at the end of the day, it's about us coming together and trying to turn those threats, those challenges, into thriving opportunities. Isn't that right, Thomas?

Absolutely. And you mentioned value. At the end of the day, value always matters. What was part of the conversations as well is we had a pretty full keynote yesterday with lots of announcements and lots of technology. Our customers appreciated a lot what they saw with regards to the technology, but they always repeat the same: it's about outcomes. It's about how you can translate this in a simple way and make it part of the day-to-day business. Technology is not becoming any simpler, right? It somehow becomes more complex, and it is on us in order to make sure that this is delivered to you in the most seamless way. Thomas and I and our great teams across the world are trying to do exactly that: meet you where you are and bring you the value directly relevant to your business process execution day to day. And it's very important to say, also, Thomas, that we have the privilege of delivering this with one of the most thriving ecosystems that there is in the world. So a big thank you and a big call-out to our partners for being part of this journey. And again, bringing it back home a little bit, right? We are in Madrid. This city is not just a backdrop of what is happening, right? It's actually a customer. The City of Madrid is using SAP, and together with our partner, they have developed AI applications in order to make sure that every dollar, every euro of spend is accounted for in the City Council. And there is more coming to power the systems that are going to be helping citizens make sure that they get the best service with the City Council. And as we are evolving a lot, there was a lot of information yesterday during the keynote from Christian, Sebastian, and Philipp, right?

Absolutely, Thomas. And by the way, if I can reflect a little bit on some very meaningful conversations that we had with customers with regards to how SAP is approaching this blueprint of the autonomous enterprise and infusing agents into daily work, the topic of governance was a very significant one and one that was coming into the conversation. We introduced the concept of verified agents. If you are going to deploy agents in a complex, end-to-end industry-related process, you would need observability: understanding what actually this agent is doing. You would need traceability: making sure that everything that you do is traced back if you need that. And you heard yesterday that we are developing those agents using ISO certification, and very importantly, those agents are SOX compliant. You may have the best technology, but maybe your auditor will not allow you to use those agents if they are touching the financial data of your systems. This is a very important discussion that many customers, I think, resonated with. And constant measurability is another element. We talked about value just before—measurability of what is the outcome the agent is generating. And transparency is something that came up in the conversations that's very, very important. And most importantly, human in the loop. It's very fundamental that we establish the trust that the agents are doing the right thing, and you are in the driver's seat to decide when the agent is going to do the work completely autonomously. And talking about that, Thomas, how many agents are we having this year?

Talking about partners, yeah, we're ever-expanding when it comes to partners. We're not doing it alone. We already mentioned that our ecosystem is here in order to help you drive more meaningful outcomes. We had many great partnership announcements also during yesterday. Very importantly, you heard about the €100 million fund that we are putting in place in order to make sure that our partner ecosystem is developing with Joule Studio agents and assistants that are going to be delivered to make your businesses run better. More and more on that: we have announced on the data layer foundation, the data fabric is a very important part of our strategy, the AWS partnership so that we can seamlessly integrate with AWS environments. And we also announced that Anthropic Claude is joining the Business AI platform in order to be able to deliver with Anthropic those agents, develop those agents with their own models. And also, you have heard our intention to acquire two very important technologies: Dremio, which is an Iceberg-native lakehouse that extends the reach of Business Data Cloud outside of SAP datasets; and the intention to acquire Prior Labs, which is a pioneer in the field of tabular AI for non-SAP data. Also, we are moving faster and forward when it comes to making sure that we shorten time-to-value, a feedback that we have heard from you time and time again. How can we use agentic technology in order to make faster data migrations? You have heard about the Accenture and Palantir partnership, that they are teaming up together in order to accelerate data migrations. And we have more on Joule Studio, right, Thomas?

Absolutely. And when we say all businesses, we literally mean every business. I would like to extend a big thank you to all our mid-market and corporate customers, because it's not only about the large enterprises, it's about every enterprise. And everything we do with RISE, with GROW, and across our technology is immediately delivered to all customers across the world. And we have the privilege and the joy to have thousands of them joining the SAP family. Maybe some of you recognize yourselves up in this slide, but there is so much more coming in literally every month and every quarter. So grateful to all our customers. And Thomas?

And again, we spoke about customers, and I would like at this point to call up on stage a customer that has been very significant in our journey together. They have done great things, and it's a company that everybody recognizes. I would like to welcome on stage Ezra, Vice President for Customer Experience Enterprise IT for Ericsson. Welcome to Madrid. Thank you very much for being with us today. And I would like to start: firstly, you heard Thomas and I speaking about the vision, and I know for a fact that you had a great vision when it comes to IT and what we did together. But before that, maybe one step back. Ericsson is a company which is synonymous to technology right from the onset. You are a company that is driving for technology, for innovation. Tell us a little bit about that history and how AI is weaving into that fabric.

Thank you. First of all, I would like to say that it's great to be here in Madrid, at Sapphire, and having this conversation with you all together. And for us, it's also a very special year: Ericsson turns 150. For a century and a half, we have been in the business building the critical connectivity that societies and businesses have been running on. And this is from the very earliest telephony to today's global mobile networks. So Ericsson's purpose is to create connections that make the unimaginable possible. And our vision is a world where limitless connectivity improves lives, redefines business, and pioneers a sustainable future. Ericsson's strategy is clear: we want to lead the telecom industry by building the most advanced mobile networks, which are powered by and optimized for AI. And in practice, this means three things. First, technology leadership in radio, core, transport, and cloud software. Second, extending beyond our traditional operator segments into enterprises and mission-critical networks. And third, turning this network into a global platform so we can expose these advanced network capabilities through network APIs to partners and developers so they can innovate on top of the network itself. And AI is right at the center of all of this. And we see that AI, cloud, and advanced mobile networks are all coming together right now, and this is powering the next wave of digitalization. And as Ericsson, we are embedding AI into how networks are designed and how they are operated, and how we run Ericsson day-to-day. So when we talk about strategy today, AI is fundamental both for our technology roadmap as well as how we run the business.

Thank you, Ezra. And while you are a deeply technological company, I know that your journey had a business vision. You started with a business vision and not so much the technology itself. Can you tell us a little bit about that journey?

Definitely. What made this work for us comes to, I would say, summarizing maybe three points. The first one is we've been very deliberate about taking a problem-centric approach to AI, not a tool-centric approach. So we always start with real business pain points, clear measurable outcomes, and only then apply AI where it makes a meaningful difference. Second, we focus on how we scale instead of isolated pilots. We prioritize the use cases based on impact and feasibility for implementation. And more importantly, we organize them, we group them under prioritized domains and end-to-end journeys. And this is what moves AI from experimentation to transformation. And in our case, we have reached 85,000 active live users on unified Joule today. But remember also that this will only work with very strong executive sponsorship and clear governance around it. Otherwise, AI will stay in pilots and will never scale. And third, I think this is the most important one, very critical one: it's about data. We've been investing in our data strategy quite early in the journey, because when you start scaling AI, it stops becoming an AI problem, it becomes a data problem. So our answer to that has been the business data fabric. Data stays where it belongs, workflows run where they fit best, but what matters most is the knowledge core here, which is powered by SAP Business Data Cloud. So this is where we define what data means for Ericsson: like what revenue represents, how markets roll up, who can access what under which rules. And on top of this, we've been building reusable, governed data products which are consumable across AI, analytics, and applications. So with these three, this is how we have been scaling AI in a trusted and repeatable way, which brings compounding business value.

That's a great array of points. You started with a problem-centric approach, you talked about scale—85,000 users on unified Joule, this is really remarkable—you spoke about the data foundation and about the classification of the use cases, so which is feasible, which is bringing value. Amazing approach in terms of bringing this all into life together. Now what is keeping you busy these days? What are the next steps? I'm sure there are some. And what can we do more together with SAP and Ericsson?

We have now moved from planning into proven execution, and it's a very defining and exciting shift for us. So we are operating on two fronts in parallel. The first one, I will call modernization. This is where we are transitioning to RISE with SAP, building side-by-side extensions on the SAP Business Technology Platform, maintaining a clean core so that we can innovate faster without disrupting our foundation, the ERP backbone. The second one, I will call innovate and transform. This is where we're really focusing on unlocking business value through data and AI, going beyond experimentation into scalable use cases for improving operational efficiency and decision-making. At the same time, we are investing in co-innovation, meaning that we are solving real business challenges with our partners in ways that are reusable and scalable and bring broader value across the industry beyond Ericsson IT. One good example is the work we have been doing with SAP together in Human Capital Management, where we have been developing intelligent goal recommendation capabilities with you. And this capability helps employees create goals that are aligned with Ericsson strategy, and at the same time reduces manual effort significantly. And of course, we are also in the second wave of engagement with SAP today and currently focusing on talent growth, mobility, and employee development. Because the real opportunity is not just digitizing current processes; it's about creating entirely new ways of working through AI, data, and platforms. And for us, the real journey is about modernizing our foundation, unlocking the value of data and AI, and building capability and capacity so that we can continuously innovate at scale.

Amazing. Ezra, thank you very much. We are really grateful that you are considering us one of your trusted partners, and looking forward to expanding more. Ericsson is an amazing company, and thank you very much.

Thank you, Manos.

Ezra's testimony is a great example of what is already possible, and you have seen the scale and the meticulousness in which they are working together with us in order to make sure that they bring AI at scale across their whole operation. And you heard also yesterday how critical precision is for business. Christian was speaking about that 80% is not good enough for your business. Large language models are notoriously good in certain things, especially in synthesizing information across domains, but they are also notoriously not so good when it comes to solving certain types of quantitative problems. And I would like to ask anyone in the audience: if you've ever tried to do a thing as simple as a word count, something that has been existing for a while, as far as I can remember, at least in most word processors—have you ever done it? Have you noticed that the accuracy of counting words in a document is about 90%? And 90% is probably good enough in order to do a speech write-up, but it's probably not good at all when it comes to reporting your financial results. This is where we come in. This is where SAP comes in with a multitude of different technologies, including hybrid AI and including own-developed models, in order to bridge that gap between 90% to 100%, which is the precision that you need for your business. And probabilistic AI uses a very, very robust data foundation, and we are here in order to also provide you this. Now, in terms of giving you a concrete example about how this technology is actually performing against other available technologies across the board, I'll give you an internal example. I hope it is okay to share with this audience. One of the choices that you have is whether to use Joule Studio for developing anything, or using any of the available LLMs that are out there. And we did exactly that. We wanted to develop internally an agent, and our teams prompt-coded that agent to one of the leading providers that generate code. We took that code after 10–15 minutes, and we did exactly the same: exactly the same prompt, exactly the same intent, we put it into Joule Studio. And we took the code, and we asked that same LLM to make a comparison of the two pieces of code and rank it against specific criteria. And it ranked its own generated code with two out of ten, and the SAP Joule-generated code with nine out of ten. Two out of ten, nine out of ten! And you would ask: is it intelligence or is it something else? And we're here to tell you that it's not only about raw intelligence; it's about context. Intelligence without context can produce strange results. In our case, the difference was that Joule Studio was connected to the SAP Knowledge Graph, which is the map that you can navigate inside SAP business objects and have actual context about what you're looking for. It was connected to Signavio, which is the digital twin of the business processes inside your business, and it was connected to LeanIX, which is the architecture basically across SAP and across different systems in your corporation. So Joule Studio is engineered in order to generate the right code. That's what gives nine out of ten. And as always, everything that we do, at the heart and the center of it, there is always innovation. We've heard from Ezra how successful companies like Ericsson utilize our technology, and it's time to call on stage another great company. I would like to welcome the CIO of EssilorLuxottica, David Canetti.

Welcome.

Welcome to Madrid.

Thank you very much.

I'm highly appreciative that you had the opportunity, we have the opportunity to be here on stage together, and that you made the time to come here. EssilorLuxottica may not be a household name, but a lot of our customers and partners in the audience probably use your products. Can you give us a little bit more about the scale of your operations and what you're doing?

Sure. Good morning, everyone. So EssilorLuxottica is a global leader in the design, manufacture, distribution of advanced eyecare solutions, and also medical technologies and services. The group is home to very iconic brands and advanced technology like Varilux, Crizal, Transitions, Stellest, super important iconic brands: Ray-Ban, Oakley, but even the most desirable luxury licensed brands that we are managing and also producing, like Ray-Ban Meta glasses, Oakley Vanguard, and all the world-class retailers that you may know and go shopping to: Sunglass Hut, LensCrafters, GrandVision, Vision Express, and Apollo.

Very good. And recently we met in your offices, actually your plant, a very impressive plant. And we had a great walkthrough, and there were some ideas that sprung out of that discussion. Can you tell us a little bit more about what we're working on at the moment?

Sure. So we had together a discussion there on the shop floor talking about retail, and we decided to have a couple of use cases to work together. The use cases are now in beta phase. The first one is about using wearable technology to support field technicians and field operations with intelligent guidance and documentation together. And the second is a retail use case using EssilorLuxottica wearable technology to enable store operations to experience a smoother operation in stores. But instead of talking, why don't we experience it? What do you think?

All right, let me get the glasses. Thank you very much, David. So what am I looking at now? Is it nice? So these are your Ray-Ban glasses. You have the same pair? Yes. All right. So these glasses have onboard cameras, integrated cameras, they have speakers and microphone, and you have a new version as well that is having a display as well coming out, right?

Yeah, so quite a lot of panel of options.

Brilliant. Okay, well, this already on top of it, right? But David, why don't we do a little bit of a show and tell together? Let me try if I can simulate a store operation person, and you can be the customer. An excellent customer. Okay, let's see if I can help you. Good morning. How can I help you?

Good morning to you. So I'm here because last year I bought a couple of pairs of Persols. One I gave to my son, and my son lost it. So if it's available, could you find it in my orders and ship to him?

Absolutely. David, can I please see your QR code so that I can have access to your customer profile?

Yeah, sure.

Can you please recall the order that was made from this customer profile for two Persol sunglasses?

This is David. He bought two pairs of sunglasses in July 2024. He took one pair from the store; the other was shipped to Milan.

We found your order, David. And do you want us to send those sunglasses directly to your home address in Milan?

Yes, please.

Perfect. Hey Joule, please order the same Persol sunglasses and send them to his address in Milan.

I created a new order for Persol 649 Original and will use the shipping address on record. By the way, David's order history suggests he likes running. Would he be interested in the new Oakley sunglasses?

Okay, everything is prepared for checkout. Anything else I can help you with?

First of all, thank you, but I have a question. How is it possible that you talk with your frame?

Oh, this is the new AI sunglasses from Luxottica. And as EssilorLuxottica is an SAP customer, we have the power of Joule embedded in those sunglasses. Therefore, whatever I speak about to the glasses connects to our backend system and gives me the information right out of SAP.

It's amazing. It's super technology.

It even told me that you are interested in sports. Would you like something, because we have some series that are for sports, runners, and cyclists?

That's interesting, too. So thank you. Well, what can you offer to me?

All right, it's very convenient because I happen to have something here for you. How about these Oakley Vanguard sunglasses?