SAP plans to eventually let companies pay based on how much AI they use. Then move on from your regular software subscription. CEO Christian Klein foresees a fundamental shift in strategy: a new pricing model and the arrival of hundreds of “forward deployment engineers” to help customers implement AI.
SAP CEO explained this to Bloomberg. The idea is that existing subscription models no longer fit in a world of AI agents automating tasks. SaaS models typically charge a fee per user, but the focus will soon shift to leveraging AI. “AI is so powerful that it would be foolish to continue to charge on a subscription basis because it automates many tasks,” Klein says.
This shift directly questions the very rationale of current revenue models. With AI agents taking over tasks from employees, traditional per-user pricing becomes less relevant.
forward deployed engineering team
In addition to price changes, Klein announced a new organizational structure. Starting in July, SAP will launch what it calls a “forward deployment engineering” team, made up of consultants and developers with industry-specific knowledge. These teams reside at customer sites and build customized AI solutions on the SAP platform. Klein explains the approach. If a customer wants to improve delivery times, “we have to talk to the truck drivers and really see what they’re doing today. Then we design a solution.”
SAP previously revised its pricing strategy with a modular structure and published pricing for its SaaS products. SAP has also exposed the platform via MCP to allow external AI agents to communicate with SAP systems.
SAP, Europe’s largest software company, has already lost about a fifth of its market value this year. This fits into a broader trend. Shareholders of SaaS companies are concerned that AI will undermine the per-user model. Earlier this month, Klein also restructured the company’s board of directors, taking over his sales responsibilities and dedicating more time to AI.
Over the next few years, SAP developers will move from writing code to building agents. SAP is already retraining 100,000 employees for the AI era.
