When SAP issued a challenge to its partner ecosystem ahead of SAP Sapphire in 2026, it set an ambitious goal: 100 to 200 partner-built AI agents before the event opened its doors. What happened next surprised everyone.
By the time SAP Sapphire kicked off in May, partners had delivered over 680 agents built on SAP Business AI Platform—more than triple the original target.
For SAP Chief Partner Officer Karl Fahrbach, the number was not just a data point. It was a signal. “That talks about the power of the ecosystem,” he said.
That momentum is now being channeled into the next challenge. SAP has since raised the bar, setting a new target of 1,000 partner-built agents ahead of SAP TechEd. This time, building an agent is not enough. The focus is to deploy partner AI agents at SAP customers, providing them real business value with measurable business outcomes.
Redefining what “good” looks like
Behind this fundamental change, SAP is challenging traditional notions of growth and redefining the path to partner success. For years, the dominant metric was transactional: how much did a partner sell, how many projects did they deliver. That model, Fahrbach said, is no longer sufficient: “We need to start measuring the partners on real customer outcomes, not how many projects they deliver, but what the customer has really achieved: cost savings, top-line growth, or process efficiency.”
This reflects a broader change in customer expectations. A year ago, the question customers were asking was: what can AI do? Today, it is: what business outcome can AI deliver? The experimentation phase is over. “That’s what we’re hearing from many customers, and it’s exactly where partners have an important role to play,” Fahrbach said.
The shift also extends to how customer outcomes are delivered. “Customers don’t want large implementations anymore,” he explained. “They are increasingly seeking AI to help them run faster and leaner with their projects so they can get to value much sooner. That’s the perfect foundation for becoming an Autonomous Enterprise.”
The €100 million fund: early traction
A €100 million investment fund SAP announced at SAP Sapphire for partners that build and successfully deploy AI agents is now drawing submissions. The fund is designed to both accelerate customers’ adoption of AI and attract a new generation of AI-native companies into the SAP ecosystem. Demand has been significant, with nearly 1,000 customers expressing interest. As of October 1, more than 500 customers had been confirmed, and more than 400 partners had signed up to participate.
“We’re seeing strong interest from new partners in the fund,” Fahrbach confirmed. “It adds another element of appeal for new partners to join the already strong and thriving ecosystem.”
The evidence for that pull was already visible on the SAP Sapphire show floor, where Fahrbach noted a shift: a new cohort of AI-native startups appeared alongside the established system integrators—companies that were, in his words, “born in the AI world.”
But the initiative is not only intended to bring new partners into the fold; it also reflects SAP’s commitment to the partners that have helped build the ecosystem over decades. Fahrbach said SAP is committed to helping all its partners enhance their AI capabilities and capitalize on emerging opportunities to thrive in an AI-driven market.
Where partner agents will live
While many SAP partners have already developed agents for SAP, it’s now about making those agents visible and deploying them with customers. To date, over 120 partner-developed agents are published on SAP Discovery Center, and by the end of this year, the number is forecasted to rise to more than 300 partner AI agents, showcasing the power of the SAP ecosystem.
One of the structural changes shaping the ecosystem concerns how customers find and provision partner-built agents. SAP has created a seamless discover-to-operate experience by bringing partner agents directly into the SAP AI Agent Hub, which plays a central role for agent discovery, governance, and lifecycle management alongside SAP’s native agents. SAP AI Agent Hub is free of charge for customers managing up to 500 AI agents, and already governs agents across hundreds of companies.
“SAP AI Agent Hub allows customers to view SAP and partner agents in a single marketplace,” Fahrbach said. “They can browse, select, and provision partner-developed agents as easily as they do SAP’s own. Partner agents are integrated into the experience on equal footing with ours.”
The push toward SAP TechEd
To reduce barriers ahead of SAP TechEd, SAP is offering a range of incentives to its partner ecosystem. Qualifying partners can receive complimentary conference passes, enabling developers and consultants to gain hands-on experience with SAP Business AI Platform.
SAP is also providing free access to the new Joule Studio solution for the SAP Early Adopter Care program customers through the end of 2026. More than two dozen partners are currently contributing to the SAP Early Adopter Care program. Joule Studio introduces a new paradigm of intent-based development, enabling users to create applications and solutions by describing what they want to achieve, rather than writing code manually. This significantly lowers the technical barrier to application development and accelerates innovation.
A key attraction at SAP TechEd will be the Agent Lab, where partners can gain hands-on experience building with SAP’s latest technologies, including Joule Studio. The goal is to move beyond product demonstrations and enable participants to build and experiment with real solutions.
“We want developers and consultants to come to SAP TechEd and gain real, hands-on experience with the platform,” Fahrbach said. “Not just to observe, but to build, experiment, and leave with something they can immediately put into practice.”
The push to accelerate partner enablement is supported by an already significant skills investment. The SAP ecosystem now includes more than 200,000 cloud-certified consultants and over 38,000 business AI-certified professionals, creating a deep bench of expertise as the company expands its AI ambitions.
To help partners navigate quality standards, SAP has introduced a partner validation program for SAP Business AI Platform with certification and development requirements, and a review process that agents must pass before they qualify for distribution.
Where the differentiation lies
Increasingly, the value of AI is being strengthened through industry differentiation by partner, with AI that understands not just a function like procurement or finance, but procurement in automotive, finance in pharmaceuticals, or supply chain in retail. Generic AI may drive productivity, but industry differentiation by partner drives competitive advantage. That is where partners, with their deep knowledge of specific sectors and micro-verticals, can create the most differentiation.
An AI strategy built on partners
With the fund now active, a 1,000-agent target on the board, and partner agents embedded directly in the SAP AI Agent Hub, the stage is set. SAP TechEd will be the first major test of how quickly the ecosystem can translate that vision into tangible outcomes. The message from SAP is unambiguous: the future of its AI strategy will be built in partnership.
“SAP cannot do it alone,” Fahrbach says. “Our partners are essential. They provide the speed, scale, and specialized expertise needed to bring AI innovation to SAP customers.”
SAP Chief Partner Officer Karl Fahrbach
Karl Fahrbach has led SAP’s partner ecosystem since 2019, when he became the company’s first chief partner officer. He has grown the SAP ecosystem to nearly 7,000 partners that build, sell, and deploy cloud and AI solutions from SAP.
Before shaping the ecosystem from the top, Fahrbach spent years building it from the ground up: he joined SAP in 2006 as part of the team that created the company’s flagship SAP PartnerEdge program, having previously worked at Microsoft and Oracle. Today, he is focused on mobilizing the SAP partner ecosystem as the force multiplier that will accelerate the Autonomous Enterprise and scale the AI agents at its core.
