Dur­ing a recent SAP web­cast, IDC — the glob­al mar­ket intel­li­gence firm — shared insights on top­ics and trends the orga­ni­za­tion believes will define 2025. 

Mick­ey North Riz­za, Group Vice Pres­i­dent for Enter­prise Soft­ware at IDC, walked atten­dees through trends the firm uncov­ered via its IDC FutureScape: World­wide Intel­li­gent ERP 2025 Predictions research. 

Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and the trans­for­ma­tion­al impact it can have on enter­pris­es, took cen­ter stage as Riz­za shared sta­tis­tics and insights into how AI can both enable and change busi­ness­es. Here are four key take­aways from the webcast. 

Take­away 1: By late 2026, 65% of orga­ni­za­tions will lever­age AI to bring imme­di­ate val­ue to employ­ees and the business.

AI-dri­ven tech­nol­o­gy is intend­ed to help indi­vid­u­als see more deeply into their busi­ness data, to assist with deci­sion-mak­ing. Insights gleaned from this data spur inno­va­tion. This is a two-way street, where AI solu­tions and users can learn from one another.

For exam­ple, Joule, SAP’s gen­er­a­tive-AI copi­lot, works across the SAP cloud enter­prise port­fo­lio, help­ing to con­tex­tu­al­ize data for the end-user and pro­vide insights into busi­ness per­for­mance. Employ­ees receive infor­ma­tion from this kind of tech­nol­o­gy, and they use their skills to apply the infor­ma­tion to their work. Over time, the AI and the indi­vid­ual both learn from each oth­er, ask­ing bet­ter ques­tions and shar­ing more rel­e­vant information.

Take­away 2: By 2026, 40% of the Glob­al 2000 com­pa­nies will uti­lize tools pro­vid­ed by enter­prise appli­ca­tion ven­dors to cre­ate their own high­ly cus­tomized gen­er­a­tive-AI capabilities.

These orga­ni­za­tions are tap­ping into low-code/no-code addi­tions from their tech­nol­o­gy ven­dors, or they’re adding exten­si­bil­i­ty capa­bil­i­ties to the plat­form. These capa­bil­i­ties bring a foun­da­tion to their data, max­i­miz­ing val­ue and boost­ing KPIs. Accord­ing to Riz­za, in order for com­pa­nies to imple­ment these new addi­tions effec­tive­ly, they must exam­ine the over­all val­ue propo­si­tion, step­ping back and look­ing from a high lev­el to under­stand what the orga­ni­za­tion needs. 

To effec­tive­ly use these tools, both employ­ees and com­pa­nies must devi­ate from old norms. Start­ing with a stan­dard way of lever­ag­ing the tech­nol­o­gy, then reshap­ing process­es around that, will go far in help­ing work­ers under­stand how to use the solu­tions to their advantage.

Take­away 3: By mid 2026, 60% of Glob­al 2000 com­pa­nies will have new KPIs focused on align­ing AI-infused process­es with their employ­ees’ workflows.

This will dri­ve 45% improve­ments in over­all oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy and employ­ee pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, accord­ing to IDC. Explor­ing AI capa­bil­i­ties will only accel­er­ate pos­i­tive change; the more a com­pa­ny brings AI into its work­streams, the more informed and help­ful its insights become.

Using the exam­ple of pay­ment pro­cess­ing, man­u­al pro­cess­ing would require match­ing up invoic­es up to pro­ceed to pay­ment. An AI assis­tant shares which invoic­es are matched and which aren’t, reduc­ing the work­load for the employ­ee involved and accel­er­at­ing the over­all process. The ini­tial result is improved pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, but even­tu­al­ly the oper­a­tion can be iter­at­ed upon to fur­ther improve process­es and gain even greater efficiency. 

When one process reaps the ben­e­fits of AI-enabled work­flows, it cre­ates a rip­ple effect, improv­ing oth­er parts of the busi­ness. Employ­ees start to see the ben­e­fits of the man­u­al work get­ting done behind the scenes, free­ing up time to be more strate­gic and nimble. 

Enter­prise appli­ca­tion providers often have AI-enabled work­flows already built out, so con­sid­er lever­ag­ing AI with­in enter­prise appli­ca­tions right away, Riz­za said. These ven­dors have already exper­i­ment­ed with AI and have seen what it can do when tied to a data set; let such providers help you start automat­ing as soon as possible. 

This will help employ­ees quick­ly see how the tools enable their pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and that only cre­ates buy-in to then begin expand­ing automa­tion capa­bil­i­ties through­out the organization. 

Take­away 4: Because of gen­er­a­tive AI, 80% of today’s orga­ni­za­tion­al work­flows will be auto­mat­ed by 2029. Plus, 50% of the Glob­al 2000 will have embraced a new busi­ness resource struc­ture by this time. 

Orga­ni­za­tions will be rely­ing more and more on AI tech­nol­o­gy to han­dle basic busi­ness func­tions, Riz­za not­ed. Pre­vi­ous­ly man­u­al work­flows will be so effec­tive­ly man­aged by AI that there will be lit­tle heavy lift­ing required. Ven­dors are exam­in­ing those work­flows and align­ing their solu­tions with AI, cre­at­ing more oppor­tu­ni­ties for com­pa­nies to embed AI into their plat­forms and allow tech­nol­o­gy to bet­ter-run their businesses. 

Advice on Change Management

Riz­za also shared that, in her firm’s research, many dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion ini­tia­tives fail due to mis­align­ment between IT depart­ments and the busi­ness side of an orga­ni­za­tion, as well as fear of how the tech­nol­o­gy will change the company. 

Employ­ees often fear for their jobs. Lead­ers fear how the orga­ni­za­tion will fun­da­men­tal­ly shift. His­tor­i­cal­ly, appli­ca­tions have act­ed as anchors that are dif­fi­cult to part with, but new tech­nol­o­gy has the pow­er to bring pre­vi­ous­ly unimag­in­able intel­li­gence to the com­pa­ny. With all the data it col­lects will come sub­stan­tial opportunity.

It’s time to face the fear and get to the next lev­el, Riz­za said. Embrace AI, under­stand what it can do to stream­line work process­es, and look for the areas where these busi­ness tools can help most with deci­sion-mak­ing and performance.