SAP’s autonomous enterprise announcement at Sapphire Orlando came with an unexpected controversy that has partners and customers questioning the company’s commitment to openness.
In an exclusive interview, Thomas Saueressig, SAP’s Chief Customer Officer and Executive Board Member, addresses the elephant in the room: a new API policy that restricts how external AI agents can interact with SAP systems. What sounds like a technical detail has sparked a heated debate about platform openness, architectural control, and the future of enterprise AI integration.
This isn’t just another policy update. It represents a fundamental choice about how enterprise AI platforms should operate, and SAP’s approach differs significantly from competitors such as Salesforce and ServiceNow. The conversation reveals surprising insights about deterministic versus non-deterministic AI, the role of governance in business-critical systems, and why routing through Joule might actually matter for your enterprise architecture.
What you’ll discover in this interview
Watch as Saueressig navigates tough questions about why external AI agents like Gemini can’t directly call SAP APIs anymore, and why the company believes requiring A2A protocol integration through Joule is actually more open, not less. You’ll hear the reasoning behind architectural decisions that some partners are calling a “walled garden approach.”
The discussion goes deep into technical territory most executives avoid. Learn why SAP distinguishes between deterministic automation that should use public APIs and agentic use cases that must go through Joule.
Key questions explored
- Why did SAP restrict external AI agents from directly calling APIs?
- How does the A2A protocol requirement through Joule compare to competitors’ headless approaches?
- What’s the difference between deterministic processes and agentic AI use cases?
- Why does SAP believe non-deterministic reasoning through Joule is actually deterministic?
- How does SAP’s knowledge graph prevent AI from making wrong decisions?
- What do partners really think about the new walled garden approach?
Whether you’re an SAP customer evaluating AI strategy, a partner building on the Business AI platform, or an enterprise architect comparing platform approaches, this conversation reveals considerations you won’t find in marketing materials or press releases.
The autonomous enterprise vision sounds compelling, but the implementation details matter. Watch the full interview to understand the trade-offs, the technical realities, and what this controversial API policy really means for your enterprise AI initiatives.