With roughly three weeks left before SAP SE reports third-quarter results, Europe’s largest software maker is pressing ahead on two fronts at once: widening the capabilities of its platform and its partner network, while a skeptical market waits to see whether those investments translate into signed contracts.
The Walldorf-based company said Monday it will revamp its Customer Influence program on October 6, 2026, a change designed to simplify how customers submit feedback and give internal teams a clearer view of the process from submission through implementation.
Customers Move, Partners Deepen Ties
Adoption is already visible among end users. On Wednesday, Bern’s municipal transit operator reported progress in its cloud transformation, which spans new planning workflows, digital HR tools and a system architecture built to support future AI applications.
The connective tissue between SAP’s own software and outside systems is drawing fresh scrutiny as well. A September 24 study from market researcher IDC examined the financial payoff of the SAP Integration Suite. SAP has argued that seamless data linkage is a precondition for running agent-based artificial intelligence effectively inside enterprise systems. In the customer experience segment, the company announced on September 21 that Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and Commerce Cloud had each earned recognition from review platform TrustRadius.
Partnerships at the core technology layer are advancing in parallel. A little over a week ago, SAP deepened its collaboration with Nvidia to embed the OpenShell security tool into the SAP Business AI Platform. Engineers from both firms are working directly on the codebase to build governance and control mechanisms for autonomous AI agents operating in complex business processes. NetApp, meanwhile, is evaluating a closer alliance of its own, including a cloud-native integration of storage functions into SAP infrastructure and joint sales efforts aimed at tuning existing architectures for compute-heavy workloads.
The Monetization Question
Chief executive Christian Klein has framed AI products as a historic growth opportunity for the group, but in comments to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur he paired that optimism with a caveat: customers still have to demonstrate the practical value of these applications. That remark carries weight with investors weeks ahead of the quarterly report, as the phase of pure technology announcements gives way to demands for measurable returns.
The central question for the coming months is how quickly theoretical potential converts into actual contract volume. Features such as OpenShell integration or analytics tools like SAP Ariba Spend Analysis and Insights keep expanding the functional range, yet corporate willingness to pay hinges on whether productivity gains show up in day-to-day operations. Until integration steps move from evaluation to deployment, the financial benefit for Walldorf remains a promise rather than a number. What institutional investors want to see is evidence that AI assistants such as Joule are driving faster deal closures and larger software budgets.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SAP?
Two Banks, Two Views
Analyst opinion heading into the October 21 report is split. Jefferies’ Charles Brennan raised his price target to EUR 220 and kept a “Buy” rating, pointing to expectations of robust order intake. Toby Ogg at JPMorgan stayed more guarded, maintaining a “Neutral” stance with a EUR 175 target and noting that the bar has risen after earlier share price gains.
The bull case rests on customer projects proving in the current second half that the technology upgrade visibly accelerates software revenue. If SAP can migrate its customer base to the cloud while simultaneously selling additional AI-powered modules, growth could pick up meaningfully, and supporters of this view argue that deeper links with hardware and cloud partners will encourage large enterprises to run mission-critical data and processes on modern platforms. Internal support measures accompany that expectation: under its share buyback program, the company repurchased further shares a little over a week ago, bringing total purchases in the current program to 8,895,886 own shares as of September 25.
The bear case warns of the opposite: if corporate customers hesitate on AI adoption because efficiency gains remain unclear, a market disappointment could follow. New software infrastructure is costly, and businesses want solid proof of economic return. Without that proof, planned upgrades may be postponed or pilot projects slowed. From this more cautious angle, enthusiasm for artificial intelligence alone cannot offset the risk of investment restraint in a difficult economic environment.
Price Action and the Next Catalyst
The stock closed Thursday at EUR 187.40, up 1.6% on the day and about 4.7% above its 50-day moving average of EUR 179.06. Even so, it is down 11% since the start of the year. Should skepticism about monetization take hold, the recent stabilization could unravel quickly.
For now, the recovery case holds as long as the shares defend the level above their short-term trend lines. A shift in sentiment following disappointing feedback from customer operations could revive selling pressure. The next hard test is already scheduled: SAP plans to publish its third-quarter 2026 results on October 21 at 22:05 CET, when the figures and management commentary must show for the first time whether the much-touted historic opportunity has begun to appear in the operating accounts.
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