SAP Sapphire 2026: Key Takeaways & What’s Next for Supply Chain

Scott Luton: “SAP Sapphire 2026 featured a major emphasis on the Autonomous Enterprise and AI-powered business operations. From your perspective, what was one session (or prevalent theme amongst attendees) that you found to be particularly intriguing? And why?”

Richard Howells: “Great session by Dominik Mark Metzger on the Future of Supply Chain – SAP Sapphire Virtual – Session Catalog.

At SAP Sapphire, we’re introducing Autonomous Supply Chain Management, enabled by new Joule Assistants and Industry AI scenarios that apply this model to daily operations across planning, manufacturing, logistics, engineering, and asset management. General availability will be phased throughout 2026, starting now.

By introducing a new set of AI-driven assistants and agents, we’re moving orchestration toward an autonomous operating model, where planning, manufacturing, logistics, and asset operations increasingly anticipate, coordinate, and resolve without manual intervention at every step.

Highlight for me was the simple definition of the Autonomous Supply Chain where “People direct, AI Assistants orchestrate, and Agents execute”.

Also, a callout to Rebecca Kaufmann from Takeda Pharmaceuticals for a great overview of how her company are, and plan to leverage AI to “augment human expertise and reduce the technical burden”.”

Scott Luton: “There’s a growing sense across the industry that AI has officially moved from experimentation to operational execution. What are the most practical, near-term supply chain use cases you’re seeing customers prioritize today?”

Richard Howells: “Rather than disconnected AI tools, the following assistants will be embedded directly into core SAP supply chain applications, where deep process knowledge, semantically rich business data, and enterprise-grade governance already exist.

Each will support a distinct area of responsibility while sharing context, data, and outcomes across the supply chain:

• Asset and Service Assistant: Changes how work gets detected and dispatched, turning signals and anomalies into action rather than queue items
• Business Network Assistant: Extends this coordination outward across suppliers, logistics providers, and service partners so execution doesn’t stall at the edges of the enterprise
• Logistics Assistant: Keeps warehouse and transportation execution moving as conditions change, coordinating agents rather than waiting for human handoffs at every step
• Manufacturing Assistant: Connects shop floor signals with broader operational context so teams can act on disruptions faster
• Planning Assistant: Helps planners stay ahead of exceptions and constraints without having to manually piece together signals from across the network
• Product Design Assistant: Helps engineering and manufacturing teams stay aligned as products evolve, surfacing the downstream implications of changes before they create rework or delays”

Scott Luton: “A recurring theme at Sapphire was trusted, connected enterprise data serving as the foundation for AI success. What separates organizations that are truly ready to scale AI-enabled supply chain operations from those that are still struggling to gain traction?”

Richard Howells: “One of the 1st terms I learned in college was “garbage in, garbage out”. This term is especially true when it comes to AI. If your data is not accurate, or stale, you will only get the wrong answer, much quicker.

Companies with a strong data foundation, through stable accurate and reliable ERP and supply chain systems are perfectly positioned to leverage the full power of AI solutions that are embedded into their business processes and systems. 

This is why the autonomous supply chain should be seen as a leadership issue, not just a technological trend. It changes how organizations think about control, resilience, and performance. It asks a different question: not how do we react faster when something goes wrong, but how do we build a supply chain that is designed to adapt from the start?

The companies that succeed in this next phase will be the ones that treat intelligence as part of operations, not as an add-on. They will connect planning with execution, use data more effectively, and build workflows that can respond dynamically to change. They will also recognize that autonomy works best when human oversight is paired with machine speed.”

Scott Luton: “One of the more interesting conversations this year centered around augmentation versus replacement. As AI agents and autonomous workflows become more capable, how should supply chain leaders think about the evolving role of planners, operators, and frontline teams?”

Richard Howells: “It’s human AND machine not human or machine

The future supply chain will still need people. It will still need strategy, governance, and accountability. But it will increasingly rely on systems that can sense, decide, and act in ways that make the business more resilient and more responsive. 

The autonomous supply chain is not a fully self-running network with no human involvement. Instead, it is a supply chain that uses embedded intelligence to support decisions, trigger actions, and reduce the time between insight and execution. Humans remain in control, but they are supported by systems that can do far more of the routine work.

AI agents will identify risks and opportunities, propose workarounds, onboard suppliers, and even trigger corrective actions automatically within trusted guardrails.​This does not replace planners and logistics experts; it augments them. 

The emerging pattern is “human plus machine,” where copilots embedded in planning workspaces and logistics processes handle repetitive analysis while people focus on scenario choice, exception management, and stakeholder communication. 

The supply chain of the future will be defined as much by the quality of its digital colleagues as by the skills of its human workforce.​   As Dominik Metzger explained in a recent Future of Supply Chain podcast, “for each persona, we are launching an AI assistant, so this is essentially an assistant made for that role with Agentic capabilities. What gets me super excited is when these agents actually collaborate with each other in a workflow.  So you may have a material planner assistant, a commercial assistant, and maybe a demand forecast assistant collaborating with each other to give you a recommendation on what you should do”.

That is what makes the autonomous supply chain more than a trend. It is becoming the new operating model for modern enterprise performance.”

Scott Luton: “Global volatility continues to test supply chains from every angle: geopolitics, tariffs, extreme weather, labor disruption, and demand swings. How are SAP customers using technology to improve resilience and operational velocity successfully (and without creating even more complexity)?”

Richard Howells: “One of the defining tensions of the last several years has been the pendulum swing between resilience and cost. After a period of “resilience at any price,” boards are once again asking hard questions about profitability, even as risks from climate events, cyberattacks, and geopolitical fragmentation increase.​

I see supply chains measured on “total value delivered”, not just on unit cost or inventory turns. That means balancing working capital, service levels, risk exposure, and sustainability outcomes in a single performance conversation – and expressing supply chain contributions in the language of growth, margin protection, and market share. Metrics and dashboards will evolve accordingly, tying operational KPIs directly to financial and ESG outcomes.​”

Scott Luton: “Supply chain leaders have more data than ever before, yet many still struggle to make faster decisions. How do you see leading companies leaning into the challenge of turning real-time signals into real-time action – – and making big gains?”

Richard Howells: “This is where AI comes to the rescue. We have previously unimaginable amounts of data both from within the walls of an organization and across the extended supply chain.

At the center of this model is context. A supply chain cannot become autonomous if its intelligence sits outside the business process. The value comes when AI is embedded directly into the workflows that teams already use. That allows the system to detect changes, recommend actions, and coordinate responses based on the realities of the business, not just generic rules or historical patterns.

This is where the role of agents and assistants becomes important. Instead of requiring people to search across multiple systems, reconcile data manually, or chase down approvals, intelligent assistants can coordinate tasks and highlight what needs attention. Agents can then execute defined actions within guardrails. The result is not only faster response times, but also better consistency across the network.”

Scott Luton: “Modern supply chains extend far beyond the “four walls” of the enterprise. What stood out at Sapphire regarding collaboration across suppliers, logistics providers, technology partners, and broader business ecosystems? And why is that becoming more critical than ever?”

Richard Howells: “The reality is that in today’s global and distributed world, nobody does business alone. You rely on a network of suppliers, contract manufacturers, logistics service providers and other trading partners. This requires collaboration and visibility outside of the 4 walls of your organization and across all tiers of your supply chain.  

When circumstances change or disruptions occur, enterprises need to be able to work with their trading partners to respond quickly. The ability to not only to work with trading partners but also collaborate effectively is essential. 

SAP’s Business Network helps companies close the gap between trading partners. It modernizes the way supply chains connect, helping you collaborate with suppliers, adjust and respond quickly to changing circumstances, and meet your promise to customers.”