SAP’s AI offer to legacy customers comes with a catch

More than 20,000 SAP customers are “stuck” on legacy ECC systems due to customizations, according to the CEO of SAP partner MyWave, Geraldine McBride, and many won’t migrate anytime soon. At Sapphire 2026, SAP offered them a path to AI, but only if they commit half their maintenance spend to the cloud first. The offer, confirmed by SAP Chief Strategy Officer Sebastian Steinhaeuser during a media briefing, enables SAP to extend limited AI capabilities to customers still running its software on-pr