Leading global companies reveal how artificial intelligence is moving beyond experimentation and into core business operations to improve decision-making, increase productivity and deliver measurable operational impact
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, May 21st, 2026-/African Media Agency(AMA)/ – Leading organisations throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa are revealing how business AI has shifted from experimentation to realised business value at this year’s SAP SAPPHIRE, held in Madrid between 19 and 21 May.
The event included demonstrations of two different but connected approaches to AI adoption by Ericsson and Martur Fompak International Ericsson is building the governed data foundation needed to scale AI across the enterprise, while Martur Fompak International is embedding AI directly into physical manufacturing operations to transform execution on the shop floor.
Nazia Pillay, Managing Director for Southern Africa at SAP, says: “The next phase of AI adoption is about execution. Organisations are looking for trusted data foundations, strong governance and practical business use cases that can deliver measurable value. By embedding AI into the systems and workflows companies already use, SAP is helping customers scale AI responsibly and turn ambition into real-world impact.”
Ericsson builds the foundation for trusted AI at scale
Ericsson is moving from AI experimentation to enterprise-wide execution by building a unified business data fabric with SAP Business Data Cloud. The approach enables the company to scale AI use cases across the business, accelerate decision-making and deliver measurable operational impact.
Ericsson, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, provides mobile network infrastructure across 180 countries, with more than 40% of the world’s mobile traffic passing through its networks. As AI becomes central to both its technology roadmap and how it runs the business, Ericsson has prioritised building a strong, governed data foundation to support scalable and trusted AI.
“Once you scale AI, it stops being an AI problem—and becomes a data problem,” says Esra Kocatürk Norell, Vice President, Customer Experience, Enterprise IT at Ericsson. “That’s why we invested early in a business data fabric. With SAP Business Data Cloud, we can define what data means once—from revenue to market structures and access rules—and apply it consistently across the enterprise. That’s what allows us to scale AI in a way that is trusted, repeatable and delivers real business value.”
At the core of Ericsson’s approach is a federated data architecture that allows data to remain in place while centrally managing business semantics, governance and lifecycle policies. By focusing on high-impact use cases and organising around end-to-end business processes rather than isolated solutions, Ericsson has moved beyond pilots to scaled deployment. Today, more than 85 000 users are live on unified Joule, supported by strong executive sponsorship and governance.
SAP and Ericsson are also collaborating on AI co-innovation initiatives, including an intelligent goal recommendation capability developed within SAP SuccessFactors. The solution generates contextual, business-aligned goals for employees, improving execution and reducing administrative effort.
Martur Fompak brings AI into physical manufacturing operations
Martur Fompak International, a global leader in automotive seating and interior systems, has deployed an autonomous intralogistics model enabled by Joule and embodied AI capabilities from SAP, marking a significant milestone in its journey toward intelligent, AI-driven manufacturing operations.
In an industry rapidly shifting toward AI-powered operations, Martur Fompak International saw an opportunity to reimagine its material flow. Building on efficient, people-driven processes already in place, the company partnered with SAP and Humanoid, a UK-based robotics and AI company, to explore how embodied AI-powered robotics could redefine material flow across its automotive manufacturing environment.
Using Joule and embodied AI capabilities from SAP, Martur Fompak International now connects production signals and business context directly to autonomous execution, creating a context-aware automation system that prioritises, picks and delivers materials while adapting in real time to changing business conditions.
Built on SAP S/4HANA and enabled by SAP Extended Warehouse Management, the solution enriches humanoid robots with real-time knowledge of tasks, attributes and exception handling. Guided by material data, storage locations, sequencing and production priorities, humanoid robots execute material flows across a live automotive manufacturing environment, identifying, transporting and delivering materials to the line while continuously confirming back into SAP solutions.
Together with autonomous mobile robots, the company has created a fully automated, scalable material flow that boosts throughput, improves accuracy and reduces reliance on manual coordination. By assigning repetitive, non-value-adding and physically demanding tasks to robots, Martur Fompak International is enabling its people to focus on safer, more meaningful and higher-value work.
“Our humanoid robot collaborates with digital production systems to ensure seamless coordination across order management, logistics and production, enabling scalable AI adoption and improving efficiency, consistency and operational resilience,” says Özlem Altınışık, Group Intelligent Technologies Director at Martur Fompak International.
Early results show increased throughput, fewer errors and a scalable, AI-driven intralogistics model. With 400 daily production line feeds and 100% SAP software-driven decision-making already in place, Martur Fompak International is advancing beyond traditional automation and pioneering a scalable, intelligent factory model.
Pillay adds: “Ericsson and Martur Fompak International show that AI delivers the greatest value when it is grounded in business context and embedded into core processes. From enterprise data foundations to intelligent robotics on the factory floor, these examples demonstrate how organisations can scale AI responsibly, improve productivity and create measurable business impact.”
Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of SAP
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