SAP stops most travel and hiring because of AI's soaring cost

TL;DR:

“Under the policy, only Al-related hiring, customer-facing travel and trips directly linked to the company's Al initiatives or mission-critical employee Al training are exempt, reflecting SAP's focus on "be disciplined in how we spend" while expanding its Al capabilities.”

no-paywall: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49222851

So will AI be what finally kills SAP, making world a little bit better? ;-)

So they are using AI to run the company, and AI allocated all the money to AI?

Seems like they're doing fine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP#mwAeo

It will be interesting to see if SAP can turn into the basis for companies that use AI heavily or if companies that use AI heavily will prefer to replace SAP.

Who are the contenders that start fresh with focus on AI?

One that comes to mind is IONOS. They seem to be in the process of building something like a "SAP in the times of AI" from the ground up. Starting with the demands of SMEs. It looks like an interesting approach to me: Having a "knowledge base" for each customer, initially filled with the data from the website. Then let the customers add more data. Then offer agents that do work for the customers. Answer calls and emails and do marketing for example.