Beyond the Chatbot: How Agentic AI is Reshaping SAP Experiences in 2025
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Key Takeaways
⇨ The rise of agentic AI in 2025, characterized by its capability to generate and act on information, transforms user interactions with SAP systems, making processes more intuitive and efficient.
⇨ DataXstream's OMS+ IA product exemplifies this shift, enabling users to issue high-level commands which the AI can execute without needing detailed instructions, significantly streamlining operations.
⇨ Generative AI enhances natural language understanding, allowing users to interact with SAP systems in a conversational manner, simplifying tasks such as order creation and information retrieval while reducing the learning curve for new users.
“Agents” are the latest buzzword for Artificial Intelligence in 2025, with their ability to generate new information and act on it. This shift towards agentic AI fundamentally changes how SAP professionals interact with their systems, making processes more intuitive and significantly boosting efficiency.
In an interview with SAPinsider, Bryan Cain, Director of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for DataXstream, notes that the most significant trend he anticipates shaping businesses this year is unequivocally “agents and agentic capabilities in AI.”
He emphasizes that the goal is to transform AI into something that makes our jobs easier, rather than something that generates a wall of text. “It’s about moving from AI as a sophisticated search engine to AI as a proactive, intelligent assistant,” Cain says.
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DataXstream and AI
DataXstream is at the forefront of this wave with its OMS+ IA product. Built on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and integrating natively with SAP S/4HANA and ECC, according to Cain, OMS+ IA leverages the power of SAP AI Core and taps into generative AI models like ChatGPT and Google Gemini. The aim? To create an enhanced user experience within the often complex world of SAP operations.
Cain highlights the existing agentic features within OMS+ IA, offering a simple yet powerful example: “You can ask it to create an order for a customer, and it knows it has to go out and find the customer and then create the order. We don’t need to tell it all the steps. We just ask it what to do, and it figures it all out.” This ability for AI to understand a high-level request and execute the necessary underlying steps is a core tenet of agentic AI and a significant leap forward for user interaction in SAP.
Integrating with Existing AI Models
Integrating models like Google Gemini unlocks even more exciting possibilities for DataXstream. Cain shares a compelling example of a “takeoff calculator” built for a building supply retailer.
“By sending a blueprint image to Gemini via the SAP AI Core, the system can leverage Gemini’s spatial reasoning capabilities to interpret the blueprint and generate a structured description, which then translates directly into a bill of materials for an SAP quote,” Cain says. “We can take a blueprint to a quote in SAP in minutes with this integrated AI approach.”
AI to Understand Unstructured Data
Beyond complex calculations, generative AI is revolutionizing basic interactions, particularly its natural language understanding. Cain notes that understanding unstructured input from users required significant development effort before the advent of generative AI. New AI models integrated through SAP AI Core help users to “talk to it like I’m talking to you to find information or initiate tasks,” Cain says. “This natural language capability simplifies everything from searching for products like ‘Can you find me all of our iPhones for sale?’ to initiating complex processes.”
According to Cain, a particularly fascinating example is the ability to ask the chatbot how to do something, receive a list of necessary items, and then have the system automatically create an order based on that list. He explains a test case where his team asked, “How do you make a ham sandwich?”
“The AI provided the ingredients, and OMS + IA, having access to the necessary tools within the SAP system, could then generate an order for those materials,” he concludes. “While a ham sandwich might seem trivial, the underlying capability is profound, enabling even new users to quickly and accurately build orders for unfamiliar products, significantly reducing the learning curve and potential for errors.”
What This Means for SAPinsiders
Simplify operations through natural language and automation. By leveraging generative AI for natural language understanding and agentic capabilities for task execution, OMS+ IA simplifies everyday SAP operations like searching for information, calculating materials from complex documents like blueprints, and automating order creation. This reduces manual effort and allows SAP users to focus on higher-value activities.
Accelerate your business processes with AI. Features like the blueprint takeoff calculator highlight the potential for AI to compress traditionally time-consuming processes from days or weeks into minutes. For SAPinsiders, this speed and efficiency can lead to faster quoting, improved customer service, and a significant competitive advantage.
Get future-ready with SAP integration and data quality. DataXstream’s commitment to building on SAP BTP and leveraging SAP AI Core ensures seamless integration with existing SAP environments. Additionally, by relying on SAP AI Core’s tools and the underlying infrastructure, DataXstream benefits from SAP’s efforts to ensure data quality and governance. This helps customers achieve greater efficiency in servicing their users.
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