SAP leans on AI and new pricing to rebound from SaaS slump
SAP executive Jan Gilg says the downturn for SaaS firms will reverse as the company pivots to AI and consumption-based pricing.
SAP’s shares fell about 20% over the past year amid a broader SaaS downturn driven by AI competitors such as Anthropic and OpenAI, but have climbed roughly 40% since the company posted strong July results. Jan Gilg, SAP’s global president of customer success and Americas, described the sell-off as an industry overreaction and expects the market to swing back in favor of firms that embed AI. SAP is developing its own foundational model, Tabular AI, enhancing ontology tools, and moving toward consumption-based pricing to make AI costs transparent for customers.
Internally, AI assists employees in finance, HR and sales tasks. The company also completed purchases of Prior Labs, Reltio and Dremio to boost its AI and data stack, while watching rivals like Palantir closely.
Why it matters
SAP’s AI push and pricing shift could reshape enterprise software competition and affect thousands of corporate customers.
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