SAP plans to eventually have companies pay based on AI usage. It will then move away from regular software subscriptions. CEO Christian Klein foresees a fundamental shift in strategy: a new pricing model and hundreds of “forward-deployed engineers” who will assist customers with AI implementations.
The SAP CEO outlined this to Bloomberg. The idea is that the existing subscription model no longer fits a world of AI agents that automate tasks. Normally, the SaaS model charges per user, but the focus will soon shift to AI usage. “It would be foolish to still charge subscription base, because AI is so powerful that it will automate a lot of tasks,” says Klein.
That shift directly challenges the very rationale of the current revenue model. AI agents taking over tasks from employees make the traditional per-user rate less relevant.
Forward-deployed engineering teams
In addition to the pricing change, Klein announces a new organizational structure. Starting in July, SAP will launch so-called “forward-deployed engineering” teams, composed of consultants and developers with industry-specific knowledge. These teams will be stationed at customer sites to build customized AI solutions on top of the SAP platform. Klein illustrates the approach: if a customer wants to improve its delivery times, “you need to talk to the truck drivers and really see what they are doing today — and then you design the solution.”
SAP has previously revised its pricing strategy with a modular structure and public pricing for its SaaS products. SAP has also opened up its platform via MCP, allowing external AI agents to communicate with SAP systems.
SAP is Europe’s largest software company, but has already lost about a fifth of its market value this year. This fits into a broader trend: shareholders in SaaS companies fear that AI will undermine the per-user model. Earlier this month, Klein also restructured the board of directors, handing over his own sales responsibilities to devote more time to AI.
In the coming years, SAP developers will transition from writing code to building agents. SAP has already retrained 100,000 employees for the AI era.