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The move is expected to help generate more than €2 billion in AI-driven efficiency gains. Asam told Reuters that performance remained strong after some of the replacements. SAP uses more than 70 AI models from providers including Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, and increasingly selects the cheapest option that meets its standards.
Chief financial officer Dominik Asam told Reuters that the company has made substitutions in products, including its internal consulting assistant, where lower-cost models could still deliver the required performance. Reducing the underlying cost of completing those tasks can therefore help the company retain more of the revenue. “The goal is healthy margins as scale grows, not an absolute reduction in AI expenditure,” SAP said in answers to Reuters’ questions. The company is replacing selected models where cheaper alternatives meet performance requirements. Asam said government agencies and companies in regulated industries increasingly specify requirements for AI models and exclude some options based on their origin.
SAP is replacing some expensive AI models with cheaper alternatives. However, the company expects its overall AI spending to rise as adoption grows, with the changes intended to support profitability as usage expands. SAP’s pricing model makes the cost of running AI tasks relevant to its profit margins. Unlike many AI providers, SAP charges customers for completed tasks rather than the computing resources used to produce responses. The report does not identify which individual models were removed or name their replacements. Cost and performance are not the only considerations shaping SAP’s AI decisions. European customers are also increasingly asking for local solutions. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.