Turning AI momentum into business transformation

Turning AI momentum into business transformation As organisations move from AI experimentation to enterprise-wide adoption, SAP’s latest research highlights what businesses need to maximise AI’s full value. Agentic artificial intelligence (AI) is creating new opportunities for businesses to transform operations by helping organisations understand, decide and act across connected workflows. These opportunities – and what it takes to realise them – were among the themes explored at SAP Now AI Tour Southeast Asia, held at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre in August. Mr Liher Urbizu, president and managing director of SAP Southeast Asia, said the number of Singapore businesses experimenting with, scaling or leading in agentic AI has more than doubled over the past 12 months, rising from 25 per cent to 60 per cent. Sharing insights from SAP’s Value of AI Report 2026, he said businesses in Singapore expect returns from the technology to reach US$9.8m (S$12.6 million) over the next two years, almost double last year’s estimate. “Southeast Asia has moved beyond asking whether to adopt AI and is now focused on how to scale it for real business impact,” said Mr Urbizu. As organisations build on that momentum, the priority is shifting toward embedding AI across core business operations. Mr Urbizu said: “The potential is enormous, but so are the requirements. Trusted data, strong governance and skilled human oversight will determine success.” WHY AGENTIC AI CHANGES THE EQUATION Agentic AI represents a shift in how organisations apply AI. “AI is no longer just supporting individual tasks; it is orchestrating and executing complex business processes across functions,” said Mr Urbizu. For example, rather than helping finance teams complete individual tasks more efficiently, AI agents can manage significant parts of processes such as accounts payable and procurement. “This shifts the role of employees from processing transactions to overseeing outcomes, managing exceptions and driving business performance,” explained Mr Urbizu. As AI becomes more deeply embedded in business operations, organisations will need high-quality data, clear guardrails and well-defined processes to deploy AI at scale. “When you’re automating a task, imperfect data may be manageable. When you’re automating end-to-end business processes and enabling AI agents to make decisions or take actions, the quality, governance and accessibility of data become critical,” said Mr Urbizu. He added: “Many businesses continue to struggle with incomplete or fragmented data. Without trusted data and strong governance, businesses risk creating more activity rather than more value.” BUILDING THE CAPABILITIES TO SCALE AI SAP’s research highlighted three areas organisations need to strengthen as they scale AI. First, nearly eight in 10 Singapore businesses cited data quality or availability as the biggest reason they were not deriving more value from AI. Second, while 76 per cent were investing in upskilling or reskilling employees, 79 per cent were not convinced their company’s training was keeping pace with the rapid evolution of AI. Finally, only one in 10 Singapore companies believed their processes or frameworks were fully ready to govern AI effectively. “Many organisations still approach AI as a standalone technology initiative rather than as a business transformation initiative,” said Mr Urbizu. “The companies that struggle to scale typically run successful pilots in isolation, but they never connect those pilots to the way work actually gets done across the enterprise.” THE FOUNDATIONS FOR ENTERPRISE AI To help organisations build trusted, integrated AI systems, SAP has unified its enterprise AI capabilities within SAP Business AI Platform. At its core is SAP Autonomous Suite, which uses domain-specific Joule assistants to coordinate AI agents across business functions such as finance, supply chain and customer experience. One organisation already putting these principles into practice is Darussalam Assets, which owns and manages several of Brunei’s government-linked companies. It spent the past two years embedding SAP Business AI into its human resources operations. Recruitment processes previously managed across separate companies and spreadsheets were consolidated onto a single platform, while AI now supports tasks such as creating job descriptions and generating interview questions. Recruitment timelines for selected roles have been reduced from three months to as little as one month, illustrating how AI can create value when integrated into everyday business processes rather than deployed as a standalone tool. Ms Nurahlina Alli, human capital development manager at Darussalam Assets, said: “By leveraging SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Business AI, we have centralised recruitment activities, improved visibility across the hiring process and strengthened talent management across the group.” The same approach can also be applied beyond traditional enterprise settings. Team Liquid, a professional esports organisation, worked with SAP to turn large volumes of voice communications into structured insights, helping coaches analyse team performance more efficiently. SAP says this reflects its vision of the autonomous enterprise, which brings together people, processes, data and AI so organisations can make better decisions and respond more quickly to change. Mr Urbizu said: “Only by ensuring AI transformation is complemented by strong data foundations, integrated workforce planning and comprehensive governance can trusted, secure and successful AI flourish.” Learn more about SAP Autonomous Enterprise.