Inside SAP Connect 2026: AI innovation and the business outcomes behind it

Business outcomes take center stage at SAP Connect 2026

Employees paid correctly and on time. Candidates moving faster from application to offer. Employees getting answers without waiting days for support. At SAP Connect 2026, SAP framed its Autonomous HCM ambition around these business outcomes, showing how connected assistants and agents could help deliver them.

That emphasis gives organizations a practical way to evaluate AI: identify the result a process needs to deliver, then examine the data, decisions and handoffs required to achieve it. Semos Cloud’s Discovery Center announcement and our joint session with Deloitte brought recognition and rewards into that discussion.

Semos Cloud brings people and culture intelligence to SAP Discovery Center

‍On October 7, we announced that Semos Cloud’s AI agents are available in the partner AI catalog on SAP Discovery Center. SAP customers now have a dedicated place to explore how we connect people and culture signals with trusted HR data to support employees, managers and HR teams.

The listings cover:

- Recognition and rewards

- Employee development

- Employee listening and communications

- People and culture insights

- Rewards, benefits and pay equity

Recognition is an important starting point for this intelligence. It captures everyday contributions and the behaviors colleagues value. Combined with listening, feedback and workforce information, it adds context that can help a manager understand where attention is needed.

Semos IQ connects recognition data with listening, total rewards and talent development on one employee record, with more than 20 agents working across these areas. Agents use that shared context to recommend a next step, such as prompting a manager about an overlooked contribution or flagging a reward budget approaching its expiry. A person reviews and approves every action that affects an employee.

The announcement builds on Semos Cloud’s Expert-level competency in SAP Business AI Platform, with specializations in artificial intelligence foundation, application development and automation, database and data management, and integration. As Thorsten Leiduck, SVP and Global Head of SAP Business AI Ecosystem, said in the announcement:

“Semos Cloud exemplifies the AI innovation we want to accelerate in the SAP ecosystem, marrying domain depth with native platform development to bring ready-to-run agents to customers.”
- Thorsten Leiduck, SVP and Global Head of SAP Business AI Ecosystem

For HR teams evaluating recognition and rewards, the catalog offers a practical starting point: identify the use case that matches your program’s needs, then assess the data and workflow behind it. That could mean helping managers notice overlooked contributions or giving HR clearer visibility into rewards. Starting with a specific need makes the next conversation with HRIT more concrete: what information is required, who reviews the recommendation and how the action reaches the employee.

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What SAP’s AI direction means for recognition and rewards

Across the Global and SuccessFactors keynotes, SAP connected its autonomous enterprise direction with a practical requirement: AI needs business context to carry work through. The demonstrations showed how a recommendation depends on information from several systems, established approval rules and someone responsible for the decision. The SuccessFactors keynote extended that thinking through its priorities to automate, redesign and reinvent work.

Recognition and rewards programs make those requirements concrete. An award needs to reach an eligible employee, follow the appropriate approval path and draw from the correct budget. Programs spanning countries and talent models need to accommodate different rules while keeping the experience clear for employees. Those operational details determine whether a recognition moment moves smoothly from nomination to reward.

AI adds another opportunity: helping managers identify where recognition deserves attention. In our Semos IQ manager-action demonstration, recognition activity and anonymous survey findings helped a manager investigate overlooked contributions and prepare a response. The information gave the manager a clearer starting point, with an opportunity to review recognition before sending it.

For HR teams, the implication is to evaluate AI across the full recognition workflow. Examine what informs a recommendation, who reviews it and how the resulting award is approved and delivered. Then assess whether recognition reaches more employees and whether managers follow through. That connects SAP’s broader AI direction with a program employees can experience directly.

‍Deloitte’s Recognition Hub: Recognition for more than 200,000 professionals

Deloitte’s previous recognition setup relied on multiple vendors and homegrown technology, with manual steps from nomination and approval through to payroll. Experiences differed across geographies, and the firm needed more flexibility to tailor award categories and eligibility to its talent models.

At SAP Connect, Deloitte and Semos Cloud shared the move to a Recognition Hub built on SAP Business AI Platform for more than 200,000 professionals. The new experience brings monetary and non-monetary recognition together, with award options tailored to the US and India, automated approval workflows and visibility into division budgets.

For professionals, the change brings available awards, recognition history and redemption into one experience. For administrators, it connects eligibility, approval workflows and division budgets. These changes address the fragmented experience and manual administration Deloitte described in its previous setup.

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“Our presence in SAP Discovery Center gives SAP customers a clear place to explore how our agents connect people and culture intelligence with their HR environment. Deloitte's Recognition Hub shows what that looks like at enterprise scale.”
- Filip Misovski, CEO of Semos Cloud

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The session covers the implementation decisions behind that experience, including SuccessFactors data exchange, integration testing, award eligibility and support ownership. For teams replacing fragmented recognition tools, Deloitte’s journey offers specific considerations to bring into their own requirements and rollout planning.

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What changes for HR after SAP Connect

SAP Connect gave HR teams a practical basis for evaluating AI investment: define the business outcome, then assess whether the technology helps deliver it. For recognition and rewards, organizations can apply the same discipline by measuring how efficiently awards move through approvals, whether recognition reaches employees whose contributions have been overlooked and how clearly administrators can track reward spend.

Time saved through automation also needs a destination, such as employee development or support for managers taking on new responsibilities. Evaluation should therefore follow the complete workflow, from the information behind a recommendation to human approval, execution and the employee’s experience afterward.

Teams exploring these possibilities can use the SAP Connect resource collection, including an agent walkthrough, a hands-on SAP workshop and an IDC partner case study, to examine the capabilities and implementation considerations. Start with a process that needs improvement, establish its current performance and agree on the result that would justify investment. That creates a shared basis for HR and IT to prioritize use cases and assess whether the changes deliver meaningful value.

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