The UK and Ireland SAP User Group (UKISUG) Connect 25 conference opened in Birmingham with a keynote session recognizing the challenges facing businesses.
The User Group itself has adapted to changes in the technology market, including the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) in business applications and economic conditions that have significantly impacted members’ ability to deliver value with enterprise technology.
In his keynote speech, UKISUG Chairman Conor Riordan said: “As an organization we must change to position ourselves in the transition from the old to the new.”
User groups recognize changes in enterprise software and plan for 2030. For example, there is a shift to no-code and low-code tools, which impacts the agility of enterprise software development. Riordan noted that the current business environment and geopolitical instability mean there is significant pressure to reduce costs, leading to reduced training budgets and the challenge of delivering more with less, adding: “Processes need to change.”
Riordan said SAP is moving toward a dynamic ecosystem of applications and AI for a future where organizations use data to make more reliable decisions, but the challenge is how quickly companies can start taking advantage of the AI now available in business applications. “We see our members saying that SAP AI can help them,” Riordan says.
However, many are concerned about how the new technologies now available will provide a return on investment (ROI). For Riordan, IT decision makers need to be wary of tackling the so-called low-hanging fruit, the use cases that industry sells to executives. “This is very complex work, and the low-hanging fruit is not that low-hanging fruit. It takes years, not months, to deliver value.”
In a survey of conference attendees, 78% of respondents said they were new to AI, while 29% said their AI efforts were underperforming.
“This is not an easy task,” Riordan said, adding that he believes the challenge is one of re-engineering processes and changing culture, and that humans need to be at the center of decision-making. “We ask all partners to be reasonable in their productivity claims so we can all succeed together.”
of The value of AI in the UK: growth, talent and data A paper from SAP and Oxford Economics published in October 2025 states that customers will invest an average of £16 million in AI this year. The report’s authors predict this will increase by 40% within the next two years. However, a theme that emerged from the Connect25 keynote session was that very few companies are actually using AI.
Another big topic covered in the keynote was the end of support for SAP products. With the 2027 maintenance deadline for SAP’s SAP ECC 6.0 approaching, many organizations are now embarking on migration efforts to SAP S/4hana. More than half of respondents (54%) said access to SAP’s AI products will influence their future SAP deployments.
Among Connect25 participants, 49% said they were working toward the 2027 deadline. Riordan called on SAP to help customers move to the cloud and build a concrete business case.
Leila Romane, SAP UK & Ireland Managing Director, spoke about the AI opportunity in her keynote, saying, “We are helping our customers unlock new value with business AI.”
SAP’s strategy is to drive business value through the power of AI, data, and enterprise applications, and SAP Cloud is integral to SAP’s strategy to enable AI-enablement across its enterprise software suite. Romane said SAP recognizes that all customers are at different stages in their journey to the cloud, adding, “Our commitment is to help you with your journey.”
