SAP used its TechEd 2026 developer conference to expand Joule Studio, its environment for building AI agents, adding n8n workflows, a choice of more than 70 AI models, and a gateway that lets third-party agents invoke SAP’s own agents through the A2A and MCP protocols. The German company announced the news on October 27, 2026, in Berlin, alongside updates to Business Data Cloud and its AI models for tabular data.
SAP TechEd 2026 in 20 seconds
- Joule Studio lets you build agents with more than 70 models and, in early access, n8n workflows.
- Third-party agents will be able to invoke SAP’s agents through A2A and MCP.
- SAP Enterprise AI Gateway arrives to govern AI traffic.
- Running your own agents is free until December for selected customers.
SAP’s announcement revolves around a single idea: moving from assistants that respond to agents that carry out complete processes inside a company’s systems. Philipp Herzig, SAP’s chief technology officer, notes that TechEd “has always been the place where the people who build things shape what comes next.” Most of the announcements have no availability date, which is worth keeping in mind when reading the announcement.
Joule Studio, n8n, and agents from other vendors
Joule Studio combines no-code and coding tools for building and extending agents, with more than 70 AI models available. Customers in the early access program can already design and run n8n workflows, the open-source automation platform; for everyone else, SAP speaks of broader availability with no set date. It also adds observability and management controls to see how agents behave, which models they use, and how much they spend.
The most relevant part for companies with multiple vendors is the openness. Third-party agents will be able to call Joule Agents through a governed gateway compatible with A2A, the agent-to-agent communication protocol, and MCP, the standard for connecting models to tools and data. SAP Enterprise AI Gateway centralizes authentication, policies, routing, monitoring, and auditing of AI traffic, and a new AI Governance Assistant helps with compliance under the European Union’s AI Act. As for pricing, deploying and running your own agents in SAP’s managed environment is free until December 2026 for selected customers, and the design tools are free with reasonable-use limits.
Business Data Cloud, Databricks, and tabular AI
On the data side, SAP Business Data Cloud adds an ontology manager for modeling the meaning of SAP and third-party data, and Dremio contributes native support for Apache Iceberg and Apache Polaris along with a federated query engine that avoids copying data. The alliance with Databricks is expanding to bring components such as Lakeflow, Agent Bricks, and Lakebase to SAP Databricks.
SAP-RPT-2.0, its model for tabular data, adds anomaly detection and embeddings-based analysis, and SAP-RPT-TS produces time-series forecasts for integrated business planning without the need to build custom models. The company is even planning to run SAP-RPT aboard the International Space Station on HPE’s Spaceborne Computer-2. The push behind agents in the SAP ecosystem was already visible among partners such as Inetum, which won an SAP award for ten agentic AI use cases.
Frequently asked questions
What is Joule Studio?
SAP’s environment for building and extending AI agents, with no-code and coding tools and a choice of more than 70 AI models.
Can agents from other vendors use SAP’s agents?
Yes. SAP is opening a governed gateway that lets third-party agents invoke Joule Agents through A2A and MCP.
How much does it cost to run agents in Joule Studio?
It’s free until December 2026 for selected customers in SAP’s managed environment; the design tools are free with reasonable-use limits.
When will the new features be available?
SAP doesn’t give dates for most of them. n8n workflows are already in early access.
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