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CFO of $320 Billion Software Firm: AI Will Help Us 'Afford To Have Less People' (fortune.com) 62

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
The pressure is mounting on business leaders to harness AI to make work faster, cheaper, and more efficient. That may thrill investors, but for employees, it could mean fewer jobs around the world. From a report: At the $320 billion software giant SAP, there will likely be a need for fewer engineers to deliver the same -- or even greater -- output, according to the company's CFO Dominik Asam.

"There's more automation, simply," Asam told Business Insider. "There are certain tasks which are automated and for the same volume of output we can afford to have less people." As a C-suite exec at Europe's most valuable software company, Asam cautioned that this reality will only come true if the corporate world implements the technology properly. After all, a recent MIT study found that 95% of generative AI pilots have not met the mark. "I will be brutal. And I also say this internally. For SAP and any other software company, AI is a great catalyst. It can be either great or catastrophe," Asam warned. "It will be great if you do it well, if you are able to implement it and do it faster than others. If you are left behind, you will have a problem for sure. We work day and night to not fall behind."
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CFO of $320 Billion Software Firm: AI Will Help Us 'Afford To Have Less People' More

CFO of $320 Billion Software Firm: AI Will Help Us 'Afford To Have Less People'

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  • Grammar, Mr Asam (Score:3)

    by Truth_Quark ( 219407 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2025 @06:04PM (#65681526) Journal
    [F]or the same volume of output we can afford to have fewer people.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )

      [F]or the same volume of output we can afford to have fewer people.

      Maybe he had his remarks prepared by AI...

  • The single greatest focus of our ruling class (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2025 @06:11PM (#65681552)
    Is eliminating their dependency on us.

    AI is designed to allow wealth to access skill without skill accessing wealth.

    Folks need to start deconstructing the Cold war bullshit their brains were programmed with and do it fast because there's not much time.

    If you think you're safe you're not. They're coming for your 401k, your social security and the pills to keep you alive. Once they've got that your house is next.

    These people want to be trillionaires and you're in their way.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Gravis Zero ( 934156 )

      These people want to be trillionaires and you're in their way.

      Well, I hope they are as delicious as they are greedy because not everyone going to simply starve to death to enable their greed.

      • You let the militarize the police already. And the police are on their side because the police are on the side of property and always have been.

        So yeah with your little semi-automatic rifle feel free to try to get through the security Bill Gates has. And then if you manage to survive that with Bill Gates or whoever completely unscathed enjoy spending the rest of your life in a work camp. Or if they don't have any use for you in a work camp they can kill you and harvest your organs or use you for various

        • Everything depends on balance. If things become too unbalanced then not even a militarized police force can save you from an angry mob.

          Besides, violence is stupid when there are such better ways to approach the problem.

          • Machine gun can take down any mob you care to point at. If it gets bad enough you use drones and bombs. Like what they did with Black Wall Street but on them much much larger scale.

            Israel is currently bombing the ever-loving shit out of civilian targets and Gaza and nobody cares. When the ruling elite start dropping bombs on your neighborhood nobody's going to care either.

            You need to get real comfortable with the fact that if you don't do something now violence isn't going to save you. This isn't a

            • I don't think we're there yet but I am aware of the military capabilities (that are known to the public). However, you should remember that even the US military isn't invincible. Despite efforts, their "green zone" was not the safe haven from violence that they wanted it to be.

              However, violence isn't an effective solution to these problems unless your plan is a genocide of the rich. Even then, you need new safeguards to prevent a recurrence. I know it looks grim now but we will eventually be OK.

        • Nonsense. All that's needed are some cheap drones. If you're going to give broken examples, don't be so obvious about it.

    • Re:The single greatest focus of our ruling class (Score:4, Insightful)

      by PsychoSlashDot ( 207849 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2025 @09:15PM (#65681810)

      Is eliminating their dependency on us. AI is designed to allow wealth to access skill without skill accessing wealth.

      I don't know that's necessarily true.

      I've come to realize that what the rich need from "us" isn't for us to produce anything. It never was. They need us to consume. AI and robotics can theoretically produce everything except raw materials. But they don't consume anything that causes wealth.

      Robots cannot (meaningfully) buy tens of thousands of iPhones. AI cannot (meaningfully) subscribe to a half-dozen streaming services. It's the human masses that cause demand. Supply without demand does not cause wealth.

      • Not when they own everything. The king did not need his peasants to consume except in as much as you needed them to stay alive so that he could get them to feed his knights to protect him and invade other domains.

        The rich don't want to or need to sell you an iPhone in the world they're building. You won't have any money to give them because they will have all the money and all the power and all the land and everything. They will keep a handful of us to amuse them and that's it.

        Think of the worst and

      • AI and robotics can theoretically produce everything except raw materials. But they don't consume anything that causes wealth.

        Wait, your idea is that consumption causes wealth? I'd really like to know where you got that idea.

        • AI and robotics can theoretically produce everything except raw materials. But they don't consume anything that causes wealth.

          Wait, your idea is that consumption causes wealth? I'd really like to know where you got that idea.

          Causes might be the wrong word for what I'm trying to express. Enables might be the right one.

          What I mean is... if there are only two human beings left on the planet and robots and AI produce anything they ask for, which one is wealthier? You can't measure that because production is on-demand and effectively limitless. But when you introduce a third person who is demanding to consume something... for instance the time or attention of one of the two originals, that makes them more wealthy, relative to t

      • Tell that to the insurance companies, who produce nothing but red tape.
        And the occasional Luigi Mangione

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by necro81 ( 917438 )

        I've come to realize that what the rich need from "us" isn't for us to produce anything. It never was. They need us to consume.

        Racist, anti-semitic curmudgeon that he was, even Henry Ford recognized the value in paying his workers decently. Because if they didn't work and earn, how could they ever consume (his products)?

      • Imagine a world where anything you want is available to you without cost.

        That is the situation that "they" want.

        Now, imagine AI and robotics doing all of that.

        Notice that there is only one person mentioned, the person desiring it all for the cost of nothing.

        Where do you fit into this? You don't.

        Now, back to:

        Is eliminating their dependency on us. AI is designed to allow wealth to access skill without skill accessing wealth.

        That is the quote you are refuting. It is irrefutable. You, your legacy, your children, your children's children, all dead from exposure as there is no food and shelter available to you. All of the reso

    • Folks need to start deconstructing the Cold war bullshit their brains were programmed with and do it fast because there's not much time.

      Right and wrong at the same time... as usual. There isn't ANY time. The fix is already in. You can tell by the outright incompetence that appears to actually be flying somehow. That wouldn't happen in a healthy, uncaptured country or economy.

  • Fewer (Score:3, Informative)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2025 @06:12PM (#65681558) Journal

    CFO of $320 Billion Software Firm: AI Will Help Us 'Afford To Have Less People'

    New Headline: CFO of $320 Billion Software Firm Doesn't Know The Difference Between "Less" and "Fewer"

  • Be an owner. Own things. Own shares in companies that will make money. Instead of putting $300k into a 4 year degree put it into shares in tech companies.

    • Note: I am not saying don't get an education. Just that you can get a college level education for nearly free in most fields (except things that require physical skills like lab work -- and even that is possible via simulation in a lot of cases) for low cost or free.

      If you can't be an owner due to lack of capital, then education but at community college where you can work on the side and purchase shares in companies so when the robots and computers take over all jobs you'll be owning a share in the output o

    • You think someone is going to lend an 18-year-old $300k to invest? Maybe you meant pwn things, and invest the proceeds of your ransomware.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Karl Marx was 80% right.

    • WIthout the degree you won't HAVE any shares.

  • Here is a pretty typical framework for tech innovation. I will use cars as an example.

    1) New Tech appears. Disruption happens. More jobs, but people realize old jobs will go away.
    Cars invented. Lots of new employees hired to build cars. Everyone involved in the horse based transportation system feels a chill.

    2) More people being hired, but old jobs start vanishing. Still more jobs than before, but everyone can see the writing on the wall. Multiple car companies appear. horse trainers, raisers, carriag

    • Here is a pretty typical framework for tech innovation. I will use cars as an example.

      Good explanation. One other thing to add is that if the new businesses and jobs don't appear, then the economy will go into a huge recession/depression, and all the expected profits from the new technology will disappear as the number of dollars and consumers for the new tech will crater.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by GrokvL ( 673310 )
      5) People on those trips with those new cars, new jobs, all that new money. More policing of owners is needed. Civil forfeiture becomes a handy way to separate workers from their cash. More lawyers and judges are needed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      That is not how it works for AI.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Lips ( 26363 )
      This time, we are the horses.
    • I dont think this works anymore... in all those past scenarios retraining or completely changing career was one in a lifetime thing... now it is a continuous thing or it will need to be done several times in ones lifetime which is not achievable. And the fact that this time multiple jobs can be automated and the services and products that require for those jobs are already covered by many diluted small business it means there will be less jobs. Automation is indeed creating new jobs, but far less than befor

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by flippy ( 62353 )

      Your analysis is all well and good, but it has an underlying assumption not mentioned: The output of the disrupting tech has to be better than the output of the tech it is disrupting, i.e., the car must be better than the horse. This has yet to be shown for AI, especially in the coding/development area. So far, we've seen a lot of time be wasted fixing/debugging code that comes from AI, or alternatively, not fixing/debugging it and shipping substandard or non-working software.

      The hype is so sky-high right n

  • So it "will" help in the future, why is it not helping right now? Because it's all smoke and mirrors (and hype). The tech is not reliable, and scaling won't fix the problem. Either someone finds a different approach, or this is as far as the tech goes. It is unreliable and it will always be.

  • Well, judging from the GUI, the people that work for SAP now must be raving lunatics. Maybe having fewer of them will be an improvement. /s
    • The problem with SAP is that it's old. It's so old, and so core to company processes, that you can't change it quickly because it's too much change management for users. Any upgrade means training for hundreds of random finance folks, AP/AR clerks, etc. If the UI was to change dramatically, it could slow down an entire business.

      I worked at SAP when I was younger. I, too, railed against the UI (amongst dozens of other things). After a couple decades in the corporate world, where most of my colleagues are u
  • Got to have IT engineers to check for bad AI code....

  • Understanding AI's limits (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mcrbids ( 148650 ) on Thursday September 25, 2025 @09:44AM (#65682660) Journal

    LLM-based AI can do some pretty impressive things. It *seems* to answer questions with remarkable accuracy, and it instantly produces code in response to often ridiculously vague input queries:

    "Write me an app to track ant farms in Vietnam"

    And what do you know? You get something that seems surprisingly useful!

    Except that it's all an illusion.

    I'm an experienced software developer (25 years now) and I focus on information lifecycle apps targeting workgroups and enterprise - organizations of 50+ people. As I write this, about 20,000 people are concurrently using an app I created.

    Over the past year or so, I've been trying to deeply integrate AI into my workflow. It's there when I write code in VSCode, it's there when I write sysadmin/shell code, and it's there when I'm refactoring.

    The more I use it, and the "better" it gets, the more frustrating I find it. It's only somewhat useful in the area that most coding projects fail: debugging.

    No matter what it seems, LLM-based AI doesn't *understand* anything. It's just an ever-more-clever trickery based on word prediction. As such, it serves only as another abstraction that still must be understood and reviewed by a real person with actual understanding, or the result is untrustable, unstable, and insecure "vibe code" that is largely worthless outside of securing VC funding, which is the thing that AI perhaps does best: help unprepared people get VC funding.

    You still need real people to get code you can live with, depend on, and grow with.

  • They are either clueless or spinning or both. Waste of time to read their "predictions".

    Bad Slashdot! Spank spank spank!

  • I absolutely believe it. There is *so* much bloat at that company, you can use AI, or nothing at all, to "afford to have less people."

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