SAP opened ABAP development to AI agents such as Claude Code. In its own test, one typed request built a whole app.
ABAP is the programming language most SAP systems are written in.
Version 1.2 of the ABAP Development Tools from SAP for VS Code, a widely used code editor, lets AI coding tools such as Claude Code from Anthropic, which runs from a command line, read, edit, check and activate ABAP in a connected SAP system. An SAP expert showed how in a blog this week.
In one test, from a single request, the agent built a complete application for maintaining a list of books. The author wrote that the code and the app's behaviour "were then reviewed and tested".
The post also lists what went wrong. The agent was asked to keep one change local to the developer's system. The change was still assigned to a transport, SAP's mechanism for moving changes between systems, because the rules of its code folder took priority.
An administrator has to switch the connection on and allow each system. What the agent can do depends on the connected system, SAP says.
The desk's reading: the post gives no figure for time saved. Asking was not enough to keep the change local, so a person still has to check where each change is headed.
Sources
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For your next steering committee
- 1Ask which AI tools already touch your ERP or finance data, including the ones nobody approved.
- 2Ask what each tool is allowed to change, and who reviews what it changed.
- 3Ask how the result is measured, and who decides to switch a tool off.
Issue 01 of the ERP LEADERS brief puts a timeline, the three-number review and six questions on one page. Read issue 01
Welcome back. · Issue 01
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