\u201cIt\u2019s freeing me up to do more of this creative work,\u201d Mr. Primerano said recently.<\/p>\n
That is what executives of SAP, the largest software company in Europe by market value, say they want. SAP, long seen as a stoic provider of back-office products<\/a>, says it is taking a lean-in approach to the technology that poses an existential threat to its coders and its business model.<\/p>\n Its leaders concede that A.I. is eliminating the need for humans to do many of the tasks its software engineers did until very recently. In a round of restructuring two years ago, SAP cut nearly 10,000 jobs, some as a result of A.I., the company said. SAP would not break down exactly how many were related to A.I. or say what sort of jobs were eliminated.<\/p>\n To try to avoid eliminating more positions, they say they have encouraged workers to invent new, more valuable jobs, aided by the rapidly improving technology available to them. Company officials say that even with the previous restructuring, they have added more than 3,500 jobs on net since 2023, including new job titles like \u201cforward\u2011deployed engineers,\u201d or those who work with customers to develop A.I.-driven solutions.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure if here someone in two or three years will still code software,\u201d Christian Klein, the chief executive, told me in a recent interview. He said he did not expect to operate with a smaller work force, \u201cbut with a very, very different work force.\u201d<\/p>\n Such a strategy could be a source of hope for Europe, economists say. It might prevent large-scale job losses in some sectors, while plugging unfilled vacancies in others. Europe, an aging continent facing a long fate of slow economic growth, has a chronic lack of skilled workers.<\/p>\n \u201cA.I. might save us from a very severe labor shortage\u201d caused by Europe\u2019s aging demographics, Nicola Fuchs-Sch\u00fcndeln, an economist and the president of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, told me.<\/p>\n It could be difficult for Europe to replicate SAP\u2019s approach, if it even proves successful, at a large scale. Marcel Fratzscher, an economist and the president of the German Institute for Economic Research, agreed that it had huge potential to salve Europe\u2019s demographic problems. But only if Europe invests significantly and quickly enough in the tech to catch up with the United States or China. Companies like SAP largely depend on American A.I. models and a physical and virtual supply chain that runs through Asia and the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cEurope is lagging behind on adopting A.I. technologies completely,\u201d Mr. Fratzscher said, \u201cbecause it lacks good digital infrastructure. It lacks the skills.\u201d<\/p>\n Some analysts say SAP\u2019s A.I. strategy is shaky, because it remains so reliant on American A.I. models. The Trump administration moved last month to block foreign nationals<\/a> from using two of those models, from the company Anthropic. Though the government recently reversed course<\/a> and lifted restrictions, the move had sounded alarm bells for SAP and its clients.<\/p>\n SAP\u2019s A.I. strategy is \u201crooted in a geopolitical fault line,\u201d Peter M. F\u00e4rbinger, the editor in chief of E3 Magazine, which covers the company extensively, wrote last month<\/a>. \u201cThe risks for existing SAP customers are glaring.\u201d<\/p>\n Investors have been pessimistic that A.I. will be a boon for SAP. Over the past year, the company\u2019s stock price has plunged by nearly 50 percent<\/a>, even though its revenue and profits have grown<\/a> in that time. Other organizations, like the financial technology company Block<\/a>, say they are saving money by laying off workers as their A.I. agents get more sophisticated. And analysts are worried that A.I. models have become so skilled at writing software that customers will no longer need SAP to create programs that manage billing or supply chains.<\/p>\n But the company is trying to go with that flow.<\/p>\n On two recent visits to SAP\u2019s headquarters in the German town of Walldorf, on a sprawling campus overlooking asparagus fields, employees and executives spent hours telling me how A.I. has changed their jobs and the services they offer to customers. (When I returned to Berlin, I used a New York Times-provided A.I. software program to help sift through those conversations.)<\/p>\n SAP workers use A.I. tools to try to improve applications for patents and to handle some customer support requests. Its A.I. agents code prototypes for new software, or add new features to existing programs, speeding up the process for developing products.<\/p>\n To help clients grasp how all of those agents could help their business, the company has built de facto A.I.-demonstration centers, including a mock factory floor to illustrate A.I.\u2019s power to improve toolmaking or beer brewing.<\/p>\n Matthias Deindl, a SAP product management executive, said A.I. agents would ultimately help factories retain and automate knowledge that would have been lost as skilled workers retire, like knowing which gear to adjust when a machine starts making a certain disconcerting sound.<\/p>\n Lots of companies across Germany and elsewhere in Europe need that sort of breakthrough. Amid an accelerating wave of retirements, Germany is on track to lose nearly seven million workers, or about 13 percent of its working-age population, over the next decade, according to estimates from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development<\/a>.<\/p>\n Absent a politically tricky increase of highly skilled immigrants, A.I. offers a lifeline. But European companies have been slower than American rivals at exploring its uses, according to a recent study<\/a> Ms. Fuchs-Sch\u00fcndeln worked on.<\/p>\n \u201cA.I. could make firms a lot more productive,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s really important that they use it<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n
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