Neptune DXP25: Closing the Execution Gap on SAP
Neptune DXP25 is live. It is a major release, and it is also a clear signal of where we are taking the platform.
SAP was designed to run the business the standard way. But no business runs exactly the standard way. Your pricing rules, your approvals, the way your plant reacts when a line stops: that is where you differ from your competitors. It is your IP. And it lives in custom code, in spreadsheets, and in the heads of the people doing the work. The way you work has outpaced your systems. DXP25 is built to close that gap.
The Execution Gap
Three realities describe the gap between how SAP is designed and how enterprises actually work.
Custom code is the bridge everyone built. It connects the standard with the way the business really runs. Yet SAP has little awareness of that code. That is why upgrades are painful, and why AI that reasons well about standard SAP still struggles to answer questions about how your business works.
The people doing the work are often not in the system. Most employees work around SAP rather than in it. A warehouse operator clicks through many screens for a simple task. A field technician without signal writes on paper and types it in later. An office worker jumps between SAP and many other systems to finish one job. Each moment looks small. Across thousands of people, every day, it adds up fast.
AI is there, but rarely in the work itself. People want AI, yet AI that cannot see your custom data and logic cannot answer the questions that matter most, or act on them safely.
The system manages the business. The business runs a different way. And the part that makes you different is the part nothing can see. That is the Execution Gap.
Closing the Gap: The System of Work
Closing the Execution Gap takes three moves, done together.
- Build around the work. Create one fit-for-purpose experience around the worker and the workflow, bringing together the tasks, data and actions they need across SAP and other enterprise systems.
- Bring work to where it happens. Deliver that experience on any device, anywhere, including mobile and offline, so work is completed at the point of execution.
- Augment work with AI. Embed AI into the experience to guide users, reduce manual effort, automate tasks and coordinate work, while keeping people in control where it matters.
Do all three and you have what we call the System of Work for the connected enterprise. Neptune connects people, applications and AI to the data, business logic and processes already running in SAP ECC and S/4HANA, with governance and security built in.
The point is not to replace your core systems. It is to make their value easier to access and act on. Sometimes work happens through a purpose-built app. Sometimes through an AI agent. Sometimes through a person on the shop floor. Neptune’s job is to connect those modes of work. The outcome: less friction, faster execution, more value from your existing SAP investment, and a cleaner path to bring AI into real operational work.
Now. Next. Later.
Nobody can deliver the autonomous enterprise in one release. So we think about the Neptune DXP roadmap in three horizons, and DXP25 opens the first.
NOW – Intelligent Execution Agents that act inside your applications andyour processes, grounded in your own SAPcontext. Not answering questions about thebusiness. Doing work in it.
NEXT – Extend and Evolve Go deeper on what already exists, and bring theagent tooling closer to the people who build andmaintain applications.
LATER – Governed Autonomy AI that can safely create and change capability,and execute writes, inside your governance andyour authorizations.
Now is Intelligent Execution: agents that act inside your applications and processes, using your own SAP context and your SAP authentication. Not answering questions about the business, but doing work in it. Next is Extend and Evolve: going deeper on what already exists, such as importing and enhancing Fiori apps, and bringing agent tooling closer to the people who build and maintain applications. Later is Governed Autonomy: AI that can safely create and change capability and execute writes, inside your governance and your authorizations. Every horizon builds on the System of Work.
What DXP25 Delivers
DXP25 is the first release of the Intelligent Execution horizon. Its seven new capabilities map directly to the three parts of the System of Work.
Equip People to Do Their Best Work
Agentic Apps. Using an enterprise app today means knowing which screen, which field and which sequence of steps. With Agentic Apps, a user simply says what they want, such as “extend this purchase order by two weeks” or “close out these work orders”. The agent sees where the user is and what they are working on, and performs the steps, with human confirmation for high-impact actions. New starters become productive faster, because the knowledge that used to live in documentation now lives in the application. With WebMCP (Beta), the same apps can be opened to external agents. We are moving from systems of record to systems of action.
Native Fiori Apps (Beta). Many organizations run Neptune apps in one place and standard SAP Fiori apps in another. From DXP25, standard Fiori apps run natively inside the Neptune launchpad, with the same navigation, search and look. Users just see their work, in one place.
Fit-for-Purpose Applications for Every Process
Naia Build for SAP Edition. A developer describes what they need in plain language, for example an approval screen for purchase requisitions with three specific fields, and Naia builds the screens, data connections and layout. The developer reviews, adjusts and approves. SAP Edition teams now get the same AI-assisted development as Open Edition, across SAP ECC and S/4HANA, with no platform change and no retraining.
Process Flows. A visual, drag-and-drop canvas to design end-to-end automations and digital journeys. It replaces brittle server-side scripts, puts automation in the hands of more developers, and uses Agent Tasks to bring Naia-powered actions directly into business processes.
OData Templates. Point an OData service you already have at a Worklist or Object Page template and get a working app, without hand-binding it first.
Intelligent Agents That Augment and Automate
AI Context Hub for SAP (Beta). Think of it as teaching AI to read the map of your SAP system, once. The Hub catalogs what your SAP landscape can do, standard and custom objects alike, while you decide what AI is allowed to reach. Users then ask normal questions such as “Which open purchase orders do I have?” and get answers from live SAP data. No coding per question, no project per use case, and it works with any AI model, any SAP version and any AI assistant.
Agent to Agent (A2A). You may run SAP Joule, Microsoft Copilot, Claude and your own Neptune agents. A2A is the open standard that lets them cooperate safely: agents identify themselves, every interaction is authenticated, and work is tracked as it moves between agents. Neptune is not a closed world. Your Neptune agents can take part in the AI landscape you build, and outside agents can draw on Neptune’s deep SAP knowledge. For many enterprises, the missing pieces for AI adoption are trust, security and reliability. A2A is precisely that plumbing.
Get Started with DXP25
DXP25 is a major platform release. Alongside the new capabilities, it upgrades core technologies including SAPUI5 and Node.js, giving you a modern foundation, long-term support and security updates for what comes next. Because the underlying frameworks change, we recommend regression testing your Neptune applications before moving DXP25 into production, planned according to the size and complexity of your application portfolio.
