SAP Unveils Autonomous CX AI Assistants at Connect 2026

SAP has announced the launch of its new suite of autonomous customer experience (CX) artificial intelligence assistants, designed to streamline and automate various aspects of customer-facing workflows. The announcement was made during SAP’s recent Connect conference in Las Vegas. These AI-powered tools aim to move beyond standalone chatbots and content-generation platforms by integrating with underlying operational systems across marketing, commerce, sales, service, and operations.

The development follows the release of SAP’s Engagement Cloud Customer Loyalty Index, which highlighted the growing influence of AI on customer decision-making processes. According to Jessica Keehn, Chief Marketing Officer at SAP, Autonomous CX is designed to address a critical disconnect between how businesses organize CX and how customers experience it in reality. ‘Customer experience has historically been siloed across separate functions and systems,’ she explained.

Keehn emphasized that Autonomous CX enables AI to coordinate across these boundaries, allowing marketing, commerce, sales, and service teams to work together seamlessly throughout the customer journey. This integration is crucial for businesses seeking to provide a cohesive and efficient experience for their customers. The new suite of assistants includes campaign, content, shopping, quoting, incentive compensation, and service planning and operations tools.

The Campaign Assistant, for instance, can activate campaigns using real-time data from both marketing systems and the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This enables businesses to create more timely and relevant marketing efforts that are aligned with their overall business objectives. The Content Assistant supports marketers in generating personalized content quickly by reducing manual work associated with adapting content across different channels.

Other assistants, such as the Shopping Assistant, validate customer and product information to speed up order preparation while minimizing errors. Meanwhile, the Quoting Assistant helps sales teams create complex quotes more efficiently, ensuring accuracy and compliance. The Incentive Compensation Assistant streamlines processes for managing incentive compensation data, providing clearer visibility into compensation details.

The Service Planning and Operations Assistant connects customer service activities with planning, logistics, and operational workflows to help teams coordinate the entire journey. Keehn stressed that these assistants are designed to span multiple systems, enabling sales professionals to quickly create complex quotes tailored to their customers’ needs while ensuring accurate quoting.

SAP is also extending its Order Management Services across both SAP and non-SAP ERP environments to enable organizations to manage demand, inventory, and fulfillment for a wide range of customers. Furthermore, the company’s Reltio platform, now generally available as part of SAP Business Data Cloud, serves as the data foundation for this approach by bringing together customer, supplier, and product records to provide shared context for AI agents.

The recent Customer Loyalty Index report from SAP reveals that 35% of consumers prefer AI-driven recommendations over advice from friends or family. Additionally, 32% regularly use AI to help decide what products to buy, while a further 33% have purchased items recommended by AI systems. However, the study also highlights that sole reliance on AI does not eliminate the need for brands to get their underlying experience right.

Keehn acknowledged that people are increasingly seeking to simplify their buying experiences and leverage AI capabilities to reduce noise and streamline selection processes. Nevertheless, poor implementation of AI can negatively impact how customers perceive a brand’s overall value proposition. As such, CX teams must ensure AI recommendations are based on accurate and current information before adding more autonomous capabilities.

Customer control is becoming an increasingly significant aspect of the picture, with 60% of consumers wanting a shared-control model between humans and AI. Furthermore, 56% expect human support to remain available when interacting with automated systems. This underscores the need for clear boundaries around what AI can do independently and where customers can intervene or request human assistance.

The introduction of personalization must also be handled carefully, as 60% of consumers feel more loyal to brands that make them feel personally valued. However, 30% agree that irresponsible data use could cause them to leave a brand. Keehn warned against the risk of over-personalization, stating that ‘good personalization isn’t about showing customers how much data you have about them; it can feel intrusive.’

For CX leaders, these findings highlight rising expectations for AI models built around accurate context, customer control, and relevant personalization with human support available when automated experiences reach their limits. As businesses continue to explore the potential of autonomous CX tools, they must prioritize a comprehensive approach that balances technology-driven innovation with human-centric values.