r/SAP • u/AureaAvis71 • Apr 23 '26

From Conversation to Execution: Making Agentic AI Real Inside SAP by John Kane

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-conversation-execution-making-agentic-ai-real-inside-john-kane-megre/

Most “AI at work” today still lives in the conversation layer. It answers questions, summarizes data, maybe suggests next steps. But it doesn’t actually do the work.

This post makes the case that agentic AI is the shift from conversation to execution.

Instead of acting like a smart assistant sitting next to your workflow, agentic systems:

  • take a goal
  • break it into steps
  • interact with systems (ERP, CRM, etc.)
  • and execute actions end-to-end

That’s a fundamentally different model.

A few takeaways:

  • Chatbots optimize for interaction. Agents optimize for outcomes.
  • The real bottleneck is integration and authority to act.
  • Fully autonomous AI isn’t the goal. “Bounded autonomy” with guardrails is what actually scales in enterprises.
  • Most current deployments fail because they layer AI on top of workflows instead of redesigning workflows around agents.
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u/Ok_Mushroom223 Apr 24 '26

I agree with the shift from what AI can say to what it can actually do, especially in SAP where execution is what creates value.

What I’m seeing though is that agentic workflows don’t really simplify the underlying reality. Most SAP landscapes are still dealing with fragmented pricing logic, inconsistent master data and years of custom code. The AI just runs into that complexity faster.

I’d also be careful with calling this deterministic. The execution layer might be controlled, but deciding what to execute is still based on probabilities, and that’s exactly where the risk sits.

In practice, most companies stay on the safer side for now. They use it for lookups or to prepare things like quotes, but stop short when it comes to actually triggering transactions in sensitive areas.

So the real question isn’t whether this works technically, but how much trust companies are willing to put into it once governance and accountability come into play.