How SAP sees the future of HR in the age of AI

ORLANDO, Fla. -- AI is the most prominent topic in the tech world, and many HR departments are being asked to assume a major role in AI programs at their company, according to SAP SuccessFactors chief product officer Daniel Beck.

SAP announced various new AI technology at its 2026 Sapphire conference, including Joule AI assistants that will focus on areas including human capital management. The announcement comes as HR departments attempt to implement AI and figure out which HR tasks will be performed by AI and which ones still require human judgment.

Informa TechTarget spoke with Beck at Sapphire about HR's current challenges, the most common AI HR use cases and how the workforce itself is changing.

Editor's note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.

What are some of the biggest challenges in the HR world right now?

Daniel Beck: I think HR is really facing this dynamic time of, what does it mean to be an HR organization in an era where AI is joining the workforce?

HR is being asked, "What does it mean to bring AI to our company and change our workforce, and how does that affect our culture?" HR is being asked to take a leadership role there. At least that's what I'm seeing. I think it's exciting, but it is challenging.

What are some of the top use cases for AI in HR right now?

Beck: We're rolling out 15 assistants across the entire SuccessFactors suite with 62 agents therein. So what you're going to see is, essentially, AI across the SuccessFactors suite.

There's everything from features and capabilities like payroll, which is a good area for assistants to come and help, as well as more talent-facing things, like how do I recruit with AI?

There's the category we would call HR self-service, or HR service, which is: You're coming back from leave, you have basic questions that previously would have been a help desk ticket or HR-related ticket. Now you can just sort of answer them yourself or get an agent to help answer. And then, if it's either more sensitive or if I'm stuck, then populate the case for me and get me some help.

What should companies do to guard against such potential issues as AI bias in recruiting?

Beck: We take this stuff super-seriously. We test everything we put in front of a customer to reduce bias. We did an ISO 42001 certification. The last thing we want for our customers is to be in the headlines for the wrong reasons.

I think a lot of vendors have taken shortcuts on the data they use for recruiting, to find candidates and match candidates. I think half the major vendors in the market have class-action lawsuits against them. So that's exactly where we don't want to be with our customers.

We don't want AI spitting out recommendations of who to transfer, who to hire, without a human in the loop.

How has the SmartRecruiters acquisition affected SuccessFactors?

Beck: A lot of clients are clamoring to get to SmartRecruiters. So I'd say it's going well.

Starbucks just bought SmartRecruiters at the end of Q1. They want to be live by, I want to say, November. We're seeing that: "I want it, and I want to go live in a very short timeline." So that's exciting for us.

How does the fact that S/4HANA doesn't have its own HCM module affect how current or potential migrators to S/4HANA view it as an option, and do a lot of customers who move to S/4HANA also adopt SuccessFactors?

Beck: We want them to use S4 for finance and SuccessFactors for HR. We'd love that attach rate to be higher. We're actively working on that.

I'll give you an example -- I'll leave the company nameless. They have S4, and they have a third-party HCM solution. Taking data from your HR system of record, your finances of record, and stitching it all together and feeding it into a payroll product is a bad use of resources.

It's such a headache for them to replicate all that data, just for payroll. And then they say, "You know what? SAP can do all that for me."

Molly Clancy is the senior site editor for Informa TechTarget's SearchHRSoftware and SearchERP sites.