SAP is putting AI agents into its products quickly. On the third-quarter call, Christian Klein said the Autonomous Suite now includes 40 assistants and 300 agents, reachable through Joule Work. At the DSAG congress earlier in October, an SAP executive described a target of 50 assistants and 200 agents by the end of 2026. The numbers differ between events, which is a reminder to ask SAP exactly which ones are available to you.
Every agent is something your organisation will have to manage. It has an owner, a set of permissions, a cost and a lifecycle. That makes agents a new class of asset, and it is a class that software asset management teams have not traditionally tracked.
What SAP says about governance
Klein said that every agent built on SAP’s Business AI Platform is run and governed by SAP, which handles identity and authorisation management, compliance with regulations across 60 countries and 26 industries, and certifications. He added a principle he called very important: SAP never uploads customer data or process intellectual property into large language models for training, model improvement or any other purpose.
He also described a central tool. SAP’s AI Agent Hub in LeanIX is meant to give one central inventory to manage and govern every SAP and non-SAP agent. An independent review of SAP’s AI portfolio lists the agent hub as an SAP-primary capability with a May 2026 status, and lists agent-to-agent interoperability as planned for general availability in the fourth quarter.
Why an inventory matters commercially
Agents carry costs. SAP’s pricing guidance says Premium AI is paid for in AI Units, with agents consuming 0.02 units per action for extended standard agents and 0.05 for extended advanced agents. A single agent run may involve several actions, and a busy agent can run many times a day. Without a record of which agents exist, who owns them and how often they run, you cannot forecast the units you will consume or tell whether you have bought too many or too few.
Independent write-ups say AI Units are bought annually and expire after 12 months if unused. That makes consumption data valuable. An organisation that cannot see which agents are drawing on its pool may lose units to expiry, or run out early and buy more at a price it has not negotiated.
Why it matters for risk
An agent can act on business data and, in some cases, change it. DSAG’s concern about contractual clarity applies directly. It has called for clear provisions on data access through APIs, usage and access rights, governance and costs. An agent that works across SAP and partner systems raises the question of whose permissions it uses, what it is allowed to touch and who answers for its actions.
Joule Studio makes it easier for business users and developers to build and extend agents. SAP said more than 700 customers registered for the early adopter programme. That is encouraging, and it also means agents may appear in your landscape faster than central teams expect. Agent sprawl is a real risk, with duplicated agents, forgotten ones and ones that nobody owns.
What an agent register should hold
A useful register can start small. For each agent, record its name and purpose, the business owner, the technical owner, the systems and data it can access, the permissions it holds, the model or models it uses, how it is billed, its expected and actual consumption, the date it was created and the date it will next be reviewed. Add whether it was built by SAP, by a partner or in house.
Link the register to your contracts. Note which entitlement each agent draws on, and when that entitlement renews. When a renewal approaches, the register tells you how much you really used.
Questions to put to SAP
Ask how consumption is reported at the level of individual agents, and how often. Ask whether you can set limits or alerts on AI Unit use. Ask whether SAP’s agent inventory covers agents you build yourself and agents from other vendors, and what that costs. Ask what happens to units that expire, and whether they can carry forward. Ask which agents will be available in your edition and region, and when.
A 30-day starting point
You do not need a new tool to begin. Over the next month, ask each business area which assistants and agents it uses or plans to build, and record the answers. Compare the list with your SAP contracts, and note which AI entitlements you hold, how large they are and when they renew. Ask SAP for the consumption report on your current AI Units, if you have any.
At the end of the month you will know what exists, what it is drawing on, and where the gaps are. That is enough to set a policy on who may create agents, how they are approved and how they are retired. It is also the evidence you will want at your next renewal.
Conclusion
SAP is adding assistants and agents at pace, and says it will provide an inventory to govern them. Whether or not you rely on that tool, you will need your own record of what is running, who owns it and what it costs.
Treat agents as assets. Start a register now, tie it to your contracts and units, and ask SAP for the reporting that makes it accurate. It is much easier to build the habit while the numbers are small.
