SAP Recasts Joule as an Agentic AI Platform Driving Workflow Automation

When SAP launched Joule more than two years ago, its natural language AI copilot, the goal was like with every other bot of its type: to help people be more productive and drive better business outcomes. Integrated into the company’s broader portfolio of apps, Joule addressed basic tasks, such as answering questions, retrieving data, and automating simple actions.

However, as things go in AI, in 2024, Joule evolved into a more proactive copilot, one that is capable of anticipating user needs and extending off-platform to third-party services. Instead of doing singular tasks, it became an orchestrator of agents. SAP also announced plans to integrate Joule into Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Fast forward to today, and the company is once again expanding Joule, reimagining it as a network of specialized agents built to handle end-to-end automation across critical business operations. Similar to many enterprise tech players, SAP is shifting Joule from a reactive to a proactive agent—and at its inaugural SAP Connect event this week, the company is unveiling 15 new specialized agents that demonstrate its direction.

Disclosure: I attended SAP Connect as a guest of the company, with my flights and hotel costs covered. SAP did not dictate the contents of this post. These words are my own.

Streamlining Supply Chain Management

Three new specialized Joule agents can help “automate critical, time-consuming tasks and empower teams to focus on strategic decision-making.” They’re designed to enhance supply chain management and bring AI automation directly into production planning, change management, and supplier onboarding workflows.

Available on SAP’s Cloud ERP platform, the Production Planning and Operations Agent does as its name suggests: it supports production planners and production supervisors by handling the prerequisite checks required before production orders are released. It can also suggest workarounds and release orders when they’re ready. This agent will be generally available in Q1 2026.

The second bot, the Change Record Management Agent, is also launching on SAP’s Cloud ERP product. It’s designed for product managers and engineers, utilizing problem reports, change requests, and notices to recommend the best course of action for completing a project. The company estimates that it will be publicly released in Q2 2026.

Lastly, the Supplier Onboarding Agent assists buyers in onboarding suppliers onto the SAP Business Network. It reviews supplier details, orchestrates invitations, monitors supplier progress, and addresses any escalations. By automating this process, SAP claims it will free up procurement teams to focus more on strategic sourcing and supplier development. The agent will launch in Q2 2026.

Automating Customer Experience

When it comes to customer experience, SAP has a couple of Joule agents for that. The company is launching its Account Planning Agent, which automates the creation of strategic account plans for an organization’s sales team. The bot pores over CRM account information and external data to provide a detailed plan. It also summarizes the customer’s history, purchasing patterns, and business context to provide targeted recommendations. The Account Planning Agent is said to be generally available in December.

The second AI tool in the space is SAP’s Digital Service Agent. Now available, it’s a conversational bot that provides around-the-clock, personalized assistance to customers, and, if needed, escalates support tickets to a human agent. This is not dissimilar to what Zendesk, Salesforce, Google, and others in the CX sector currently offer.

Finally, SAP is announcing that its Catalog Optimization Agent, first introduced at the company’s Sapphire conference this year, is now generally available. This is a bot that maintains and optimizes product data, helping organizations ensure their merchandise inventory is accurate.

New Finance Automations

SAP is launching two Joule agents built to help finance teams ensure compliance and automate routine finance processes. The new bots—cash management and international trade classification agents—build off the Joule updates that SAP announced at its Sapphire conference earlier this year.

The Cash Management Agent (launching in Q1 2026) is a bot capable of analyzing daily bank statements and automating reconciliation tasks, identifying any cash shortages or surpluses, and suggesting ways to optimize the process. SAP claims that this agent can reduce time spent by 80 percent compared to manual processing.

As for the International Trade Classification Agent, it will make sure companies adhere to global trade regulations. The bot can examine product characteristics and trade regulations to classify goods for international shipping. It can also advise on customs tariff numbers and commodity codes. The agent will be available to customers in beta starting this December, but won’t be generally available until 2026.

Spending Assistance

SAP has a new Joule agent—the Bid Analysis Agent—that automatically evaluates supplier bid data to see if it’s the right decision. Its analysis factors in unit pricing, shipping, and payment terms. The bot will also highlight the pros and cons of a particular course of action and surface insights that SAP claims are often overlooked when the bidding process is done manually. Customers will be able to use the Bid Analysis Agent in Q1 2026.

Another addition is the Receipt Analysis Agent, a bot that auto-completes expense entries, filling in critical gaps. It’s embedded inside ExpenseIt, the AI solution within Concur Expense that generates expense reports from receipt images. Using maps, vendor databases, web searches, and trip itineraries from Concur Travel, the Receipt Analysis Agent can compile an accurate expense accounting when needed. It will assess the type of expense required and verify vendor details, even for those new to the system. SAP reveals this agent will be available in Q4 2025.

HR Management

Three new Joule agents are being integrated into SAP’s SuccessFactors to enhance human resource processes and make the experience more personalized to employees.

First is the Career and Talent Development Agent, which assists managers in identifying and developing future leaders on their teams. It looks over succession plans and prompts managers for updates, advises on who to promote, and can craft a personalized development plan for future leaders.

Next is a bot for employees to get their HR questions answered. With the HR Service Agent, workers can prompt the AI about company policies or create a support ticket within SAP SuccessFactors Enterprise Service Management software.

Lastly, the People Intelligence Agent is designed to provide managers and HR teams with workforce analytics. Executives can ask questions to uncover trends or problems and receive tailored actions to address any organizational issues, such as employee retention, compensation, and skills distribution.

All three of these agents are expected to be available in May 2026.

A Self-Service Agent for Utility Customers

The Utilities Customer Self-Service Agentis a bot made specifically for utility companies. As the name implies, it’s built to provide automated customer service and is integrated with SAP’s Cloud ERP Private offering. SAP asserts this agent will help “ensure a tailored, personalized customer experience and addresses specific challenges for utility companies facing market deregulation and the rise of prosumers.” The Utilities Customer Self-Service Agent will be released in Q4 2025.

Business Transformation Management

The final two specialized Joule agents being announced at SAP Connect focus on business transformation. Both are explicitly designed for SAP Signavio, the company’s software that helps customers overhaul operations and better adapt to market changes.

The Process Content Recommender Agent assists organizations in processing content recommendations. It’s trained on both SAP and custom process models’ best practices. Process owners are provided a structured and prioritized list of content tailored to specific process improvements.

To accelerate onboarding for process modeling and mining analysis, SAP has built the Workspace Administration Agent. It makes it easier for admins to sign up multiple users with the correct licenses, roles, and privileges.

Both of these agents are expected to be generally available in February 2026.

Other Agentic Updates

Beyond the slate of Joule agents that are being revealed, SAP is adding new AI capabilities to make agents on its platform more powerful and scalable. The company is announcing the creation of Joule Studio in SAP Build, its low-code/now-code platform for developers and users to create enterprise applications. Now, there’s going to be a way for anyone to build their own custom Joule agent.

The release of Joule Studio puts SAP on par with other enterprise technology firms that offer similar solutions, such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Microsoft. The agent builder is currently in beta, with global availability planned for Q4 2025.

If you’re looking for Joule agents to work with third-party agents, then you’ll be happy to hear that SAP plans to support the Agent2Agent protocol. However, the company didn’t state when exactly the first implementation would be revealed.

While SAP is unveiling 15 specialized agents, it’s worth noting that most aren’t available until next year. Nevertheless, this preview suggests that SAP aims to be viewed as a serious contender in the enterprise AI race. The real question is whether SAP can deliver on its promise of deeply embedding AI into business workflows to stand out against rivals and prove to its customers that its new Joule agents are capable of delivering actual results, rather than being another fancy piece of software that employees are forced to use.

Featured Image: Using Joule, SAP's autonomous, collaborative AI agents. Credit: SAP