SAP freezes hiring and travel to fund its AI future
sap suspended most hiring and travel to redirect capital to surging ai costs, signaling a shift where enterprise ai investment outweighs traditional operational spending.
sap halted global hiring and travel last month to absorb rising costs from ai tool deployment, restricting exceptions to ai-specific roles and development. an internal email cited increasing token usage as the driver, mandating discipline to redirect funds toward the company's 'all in on ai' strategy. this mirrors actions by firms like microsoft and adobe, which are capping ai use as token expenditures spiral. the freeze indicates that for major software vendors, funding the ai transition now requires aggressive cuts to legacy operational expenses.