SAP's First Embodied AI Jam Turns Weeks of Work Into Three Days

A robot dog weaves between tables while a small drone hums overhead and a humanoid robot picks, packs, and poses for photos. That was the scene at SAP's first Embodied AI Jam.

Last week, SAP customers gathered at the Swiss Smart Factory in Biel, Switzerland, to see firsthand how robots and SAP software can work together to solve real business challenges.

Embodied AI requires more than a robot. The term describes AI agents that interact with the world through a physical body, letting machines perceive, understand, reason and act autonomously in real environments.

By connecting these agents to Joule and the SAP Business AI Platform, SAP brings business context into physical execution: robots do not merely carry out tasks, they understand the business decisions those tasks serve.

Warehouse automation, asset inspection and material handling are just a few of the business scenarios where embodied AI is beginning to create value.

Making these scenarios work takes more than a robot. It also takes business context from SAP applications, integration expertise that connects systems and robots, and a suitable robot to perform the task.

Three days versus weeks. SAP Switzerland CTO Alexander Finger was a key driver of the event. He said a new format was needed to spark market interest in embodied AI and turn it from an exciting technology topic into practical, SAP-connected business value.

Unlike a traditional innovation jam, an embodied AI Jam needs robots and a space where people can safely work alongside them. The Swiss Smart Factory provided exactly that environment.

At the Jam, customers and partners were paired with system integrators and robot manufacturers matched to their business challenges. Some teams explored how inspection drones connect to solutions such as SAP Asset Performance Management; others examined how humanoid robots could support processes in SAP Digital Manufacturing.

The result was progress in a few days that normally takes weeks.

Lukasz Ostrowski, who leads SAP's embodied AI program, said that finding where embodied AI creates real business value and shaping solutions usually takes weeks of scattered back-and-forth communication. Three focused days with customers changed that, letting teams test ideas, challenge assumptions and iterate in real time until they reached concrete outcomes neither side could have defined alone.

The physical dimension makes embodied AI tangible. For Finger, embodied AI only makes sense when customers can experience it themselves. Seeing a robot perform a task driven by business processes and goals is easier to grasp than slides or a demo.

That is why the Swiss Smart Factory matters: it offers a safe environment where customers, robot manufacturers, system integrators and SAP's embodied AI experts can work and explore together.

From January 2027, SAP Switzerland will become a member of the Swiss Smart Factory, allowing it to host future embodied AI Jams and shorter exploration formats.

SAP customer experience labs show customers how SAP applications, data and AI solve business challenges; the Swiss Smart Factory adds the physical dimension, giving customers a hands-on environment to explore how robots are connected, how they act in business context, and how they create tangible business value.

Finger concluded that SAP's conversations with customers become richer. Beyond the speed at which teams developed use cases and architecture proposals, one standout outcome was that customers left the event wanting to continue the conversation and explore their embodied AI ambitions further.