back to article SAP says GenAI will help solve legacy migration skills shortage

SAP has claimed that its systems integrator partners will avoid a skills crunch in the looming 2027 support deadline by using GenAI to get to grips with legacy software. Speaking to The Register, David Robinson, SAP president and chief revenue officer for cloud ERP, said fears of a skills crisis in the SAP user world could be …

  1. Kevin Johnston

    Curious timing

    This story was filed mere minutes after one which shows how useful AI is actually going to be...https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/10/ai_slop_bug_reports/

    The referenced story hangs on AI being really bad at working out what code is supposed to be doing and anyone who has done a migration will know that the 80% of 'simple' stuff is not the issue but it is the edge cases with data/functions that have been adbused/mis-used where the migration stands or falls. If human fuzzy logic fails then AI has no chance

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Curious timing

      This is how human civilisation ends. Not with an 'I, Robot' style GenAI taking over control 'for humankind's benefit', but with AI's effectively controlling everything and comprehensively screwing it up. No human will be able to understand the coding mess and get the computers up and running and doing 'useful' things, and the GenAIs that actually run things will be too stupid to get that we are starving because the computer controlled factories are filling their quotas but not producing or distributing any actual food to us.

      If Earth is ever visited by aliens in the dim and distant future, they will uncover a world where all the robots are working perfectly servicing a biosphere that no longer exists.

      Happy Christmas everybody!

      1. mikecoppicegreen
        Unhappy

        Re: Curious timing

        Your flight is delayed - due to a lack of lemon-scented napkins.

        (obligatory Douglas Adams reference....)

  2. Kraft

    If I was a SAP customer…

    I would feel extremely annoyed with getting a SciFi solution for a real world problem.

    1. seven of five Silver badge

      Re: If I was a SAP customer…

      checks date... Three years until end of support. When, in three years time, you were (for whatever reaso^H^H^H^H^Hexcuses) unable to hire and train someone to do the upcoming migration properly, you forfeited all rights to complain.

    2. Eclectic Man Silver badge

      Re: If I was a SAP customer…

      What do you mean "solution"?

  3. Mage Silver badge
    Flame

    This is nonsense

    See title.

    Maybe wishful thinking and Crayon Dept.

    Perhaps someone expert, not in employ of a large Corp, would like to point at a real working example of GenAI and explain why it's Gen AI?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Skills shortages?!

    I swear if i hear ONE more exec going on about IT skills shortages in this country I'm going to scream. Every job advert out there is fake & people are having a nightmare finding anything. Rates & wages are stuck at 2010 levels, even for so called "shortage areas" like cybersecurity...

    Gen AI is decades away and the LLM crap we have now will not do anything like what the grifters are saying it will

    1. devin3782

      Re: Skills shortages?!

      Hang on... didn't all of these companies fire a load of people and they're now wondering why there's a shortage of workers? <sarcasm>Hmmmm I wonder if those two things are related in some way... nah couldn't possibly be the case</sarcasm>

    2. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Skills shortages?!

      Dont worry, give it a couple of months and agency jobs like this will be coming

      "SAP migration experts needed.

      Senior roles: must have 5 years experience in using AI and LLM in SAP large scale migration projects.

      Junior roles at least 2 years experience in using AI and LLM in SAP migration projects"

  5. Howard Sway Silver badge

    fears of a skills crisis in the SAP user world could be alleviated

    In my experience, SAP consultants tend to retire early, because it's very well paid, but also hellishly complex and stress inducing. They are also highly intelligent with years of domain specific knowledge and experience which enables them to do the job. If this dumbass thinks statistical text generators can "do" that job, he needs to explain exactly how, with fully detailed examples of it happening successfully, otherwise he should be one of the first over-remunerated execs fired for jumping on the hype bandwagon without a clue.

    1. seven of five Silver badge

      Re: fears of a skills crisis in the SAP user world could be alleviated

      ^ This.

      Start now and you will make it.

      Start in 2027 and you will make it ... onto the Register.

  6. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Facepalm

    So now Gen AI is the solution

    That is a dangerous line to toe.

    After all, if Gen Ai can solve SAP migration problems, maybe Gen AI can solve SAP and get rid of it.

  7. JamesTGrant Bronze badge

    Robinson also said SAP had "engineered out" much of the complexity of on-prem architectures. "We've abstracted away all of the underlying infrastructure, architectural analysis and management. [Customers are no longer] required to maintain an entire area of expertise around infrastructure and capacity planning at a very tedious technical level," he said.

    I think he means ‘wish we had engineered out’ and ‘a very essential technical level’

  8. Mentat74
    Coat

    No...

    No it won't...

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