A robodog weaves it way between tables. A small drone purrs overhead. Humanoids pick, pack, and pose for photos. Welcome to SAP’s first Embodied AI Jam.

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

Embodied AI refers to AI agents that interact with the world through a physical body—enabling machines to autonomously perceive, understand, reason, and act in real environments. By connecting these agents to Joule and SAP Business AI Platform, SAP brings business context into that physical execution: robots that don’t just carry out tasks, but understand the business decisions those tasks serve.

Warehouse automation, asset inspection, and material handling are just some of the business scenarios where embodied AI is beginning to create value. Bringing those scenarios to life requires more than a robot. It requires business context from SAP applications, integration expertise to connect systems and robots, and the right robots to execute the task.

“Generating market interest for embodied AI and transforming it from an exciting technology topic into a practical SAP-connected business value demanded a new format,” explained SAP Switzerland CTO Alexander Finger, who was a key driver behind the event.

Unlike traditional innovation jams, an embodied AI jam requires robots and a space where people can safely work with them side by side.

The Swiss Smart Factory provided exactly that environment for SAP Switzerland to host the event. Bringing together customers, robot manufacturers, system integrators, and SAP’s embodied AI experts created a unique opportunity to move from discussion to hands-on experimentation and real-world use cases.

Viable use cases in days, not weeks

Embodied AI may well be all about hardware and software, but Finger says accelerating progress is ultimately about bringing people together. At the jam, customers and partners were paired with system integrators and robot manufacturers aligned to their business challenges.

While some teams explored how inspection drones could connect to solutions such as SAP Asset Performance Management, others investigated how humanoids could support processes with SAP Digital Manufacturing.

The result was a level of progress that typically takes weeks to achieve.

“Finding where embodied AI creates real business value—and shaping a solution to deliver it—typically takes weeks of distributed back-and-forth,” said Lukasz Ostrowski, head of the embodied AI initiative at SAP. “Three days of dedicated, focused time with customers changed that. We could test ideas, challenge assumptions, and iterate in real time until we arrived at something concrete that neither side could have defined alone. What we learn with each customer like this doesn’t stay with that customer—it shapes how we build for the rest of the industry.”

The physical dimension makes embodied AI tangible

For Finger, embodied AI only becomes meaningful when customers can experience it firsthand.

Seeing a robot perform tasks informed by business processes and objectives makes the potential business value far easier to understand than a slide deck or demo alone.

This is why the Swiss Smart Factory plays such an important role; it provides a safe environment where customers, robot manufacturers, system integrators, and SAP’s embodied AI experts can work and explore embodied AI in action together.

As of January 2027, SAP Switzerland will become a member of Swiss Smart Factory, enabling it to host future embodied AI jams as well as shorter discovery formats like those already used for other AI customer-facing events.

While SAP Customer Experience Labs show customers how SAP applications, data, and AI can solve business challenges, the Swiss Smart Factory adds a physical dimension. It gives customers a hands-on environment to explore how robots can be connected, act in a business context, and create tangible business value.

Bringing embodied AI to more customers globally

“SAP is richer when we talk to customers,” Finger concluded, reflecting on the success of the jam. Beyond the speed with which teams developed use cases and architectural proposals, one outcome stood out: customers left the event wanting to continue the conversation and further explore their embodied AI ambitions with SAP.

As SAP Switzerland expands its offerings of embodied AI events, more customers will be able to experience embodied AI firsthand and explore how robots, SAP applications, and business processes can work together to create value.