Analyst(s): Keith Kirkpatrick
Publication Date: September 24, 2026
SAP expanded its Business Transformation Management portfolio to help enterprises deploy, govern, and monitor AI agents. The updates address the practical requirements of automation, from company rules and application access to employee adoption and measurable returns.
What is Covered in this Article
- Process intelligence and company knowledge for AI agents.
- Agent ownership, risk assessment, and operational monitoring.
- WalkMe’s tools for employee adoption and application access.
- Customer use cases and Futurum’s findings on AI returns.
The News: SAP announced updates to Signavio, LeanIX, WalkMe, and Cloud ALM at its Transformation Excellence Summit in Atlanta on September 22, 2026. The updates support the deployment, governance, and operation of AI agents through SAP’s Business Transformation Management portfolio.
The announcement covers process mining, AI-assisted process design, architecture guidance, automated risk classification, and WalkMe authoring and analytics tools. Company Memory remains a preview, while Cloud ALM supports deployment and monitors agent actions in production.
SAP Links AI Agents to Business Processes and Oversight
Analyst Take: SAP’s approach addresses the work required to put AI agents into everyday business operations. Companies need reliable process knowledge, clear accountability, and employees who actually use the tools. Futurum’s 2H 2026 Enterprise Software Decision Maker Survey (n=833, August 2026) finds that expected and actual returns on recent software purchases both average roughly 14% (range-midpoint estimate), and 41.5% of decision makers say validated ROI studies would increase their confidence in allocating budget, underscoring the need for credible benchmarks when assessing automation investments.
Process Knowledge Gives AI Agents Direction
AI agents need access to the rules and operating knowledge that guide business decisions. Signavio’s Process Consulting Agent uses process mining across SAP and non-SAP environments to identify bottlenecks and recommend where agents can help. The redesigned Process Modeler combines AI-native design, governance, and collaboration, while Process Intelligence monitors how processes run. Company Memory will provide a shared source of company rules and know-how, complementing LeanIX’s repository of approved architecture principles, security standards, and technical decisions. These capabilities address the need to connect automated actions with the company’s own processes and constraints.
Accountability Extends Into Daily Operations
Human accountability remains essential as AI agents take on work across connected business functions. SAP AI Agent Hub maps agents, large language models, and MCP servers to capabilities and owners, while the AI Governance Assistant automates risk classification using the EU AI Act and NIST compliance intelligence. The assistant reassesses risk when systems change, and LeanIX’s expanded AI Enterprise Architect Assistant retains human judgment while drawing on live workspace data, benchmarks, and SAP best practices. Cloud ALM supports analysis, configuration, testing, and rollout before tracking agent actions in production to identify deviations and assess outcomes. Oversight must continue after deployment so enterprises can trace decisions and check that agents operate as intended.
Adoption Depends on How Employees Work
The gap between access and successful use of AI remains wide. For example, Futurum’s 2H 2026 CIO survey (September 2026) found that 73.3% of organizations buying AI externally report either adoption without realized ROI or ROI limited to pilots, and only 12.6% report sustained ROI at scale.
WalkMe brings Joule Agents, assistants, and skills into existing SAP and non-SAP workflows, with controls over access and execution. Its UI-native agent operates interfaces in legacy systems, customized ERP environments, and third-party applications that standard API connections cannot reach. AI Authoring generates deployable plans from plain-language requests, while AI Insights produces analysis, charts, and dashboards from workflow and content data. The practical measure of adoption is whether employees use these capabilities consistently in their daily work.
Customer Results Need Clear Baselines
Approval delays offer a concrete starting point because a stalled procurement decision can hold up supply chain and finance activity. A cement manufacturer uses a voice-based agent to capture requisitions and create purchase orders after approval, although the improvement from a cycle previously measured in weeks has no precise revised figure. Other examples include faster Joule-assisted responses at a conglomerate handling more than 15,000 RFPs annually and a consulting evaluation that produced an answer in seconds after six hours of work the previous day. These performance examples lack independent verification, while implementation still requires business sponsorship, employee participation, and reliable data. Enterprises should measure their own cycle-time and cost improvements, including token costs, and require pilots to demonstrate a credible path to production.
What to Watch
- Company Memory’s progression from preview and its ability to provide consistent rules and process knowledge to employees and AI agents.
- Measured improvements in procure-to-pay, accounts payable, and receivables, including days sales outstanding, with clear baselines for assessing returns.
- The data foundation across Business Technology Platform, Business Data Cloud, Business AI, and the underlying knowledge graph, alongside the announced Dremio and Prior Labs acquisitions.
- Sustained use of WalkMe’s assistance and interface-based execution across older applications, with workflow analytics tracking changes in working practices.Learning applications that personalize training at scale, alongside automated sourcing requests and scenario analysis that support responses to supply disruptions.
Read SAP’s announcement on its Business Transformation Management updates on the company website.
Declaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process: This content has been generated with the support of artificial intelligence technologies. Due to the fast pace of content creation and the continuous evolution of data and information, The Futurum Group and its analysts strive to ensure the accuracy and factual integrity of the information presented. However, the opinions and interpretations expressed in this content reflect those of the individual author/analyst. The Futurum Group makes no guarantees regarding the completeness, accuracy, or reliability of any information contained herein. Readers are encouraged to verify facts independently and consult relevant sources for further clarification.
Disclosure: Futurum is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum as a whole.
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Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is VP & Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
