When the robot stopped being a robot
Remember when RPA meant simple scripts clicking around in SAP? That was the Stone Age. Today we are entering an era in which AI agents do not just execute tasks - they think, plan and make decisions.
And no, this is not science fiction. It is happening now.
Suncoast Credit Union has just avoided losses of 2.7 million dollars thanks to AI agents detecting fraud. British American Tobacco saves 230,000 working hours a year. Fiserv automates 98% of end-to-end processes.
The numbers do not lie. The AI agents market is exploding from 5.2 billion dollars in 2024 to a projected 93-196 billion by 2030-2034. This is not a bubble - it is a fundamental shift in how enterprises operate.
SAP Joule: from assistant to autonomous agent
At this year’s SAP Sapphire 2025, the world saw more than just another update. SAP has turned Joule into a comprehensive AI agent platform, announcing the deployment of more than 400 AI use cases by the end of the year.
What does this mean in practice?
Bosch - a global giant - has deployed Joule agents across multiple divisions. Bosch Power Tools manages millions of service requests a year. The effect? A 10% reduction in energy costs, a 20% increase in productivity, and a 10% improvement in OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness).
At the Bosch plant in Lohr, SAP Digital Manufacturing cut new-product development costs by a further 10%.
Joule agents - concrete tools, not buzzwords
SAP is not just throwing around slogans. Here is what they are actually deploying:
Quote Creation Agent (Q2 2025) - turns email quote requests into ready-to-send quotations. No more manual retyping.
Dispute Resolution Agent (Q3 2025) - validates disputed invoices, proposes resolutions, and processes overdue receivables. Minimises write-offs of bad debt.
Production Planning Agent (Q1 2026) - automatically verifies and releases production orders once conditions are met. No waiting for a human.
But that is not all. Joule Studio Agent Builder allows every company to build its own agents without coding. It is like LEGO for business process automation.
UiPath FUSION 2025: orchestration instead of automation
Daniel Dines, CEO of UiPath, called it the company’s “Act Two” - the transition from RPA leader to agentic automation platform.
What did they show at FUSION 2025?
UiPath Agent Builder with more than 50 ready-made agent templates. Support for Python, Node.js, and integration with LangChain, CrewAI and Salesforce. This is no longer RPA - it is a platform for building intelligent systems.
The Fiserv case - when 98% is not enough
Fiserv, a global fintech leader, achieved something extraordinary: 98% end-to-end automation for validating MCC (Merchant Category Code) codes.
How does it work?
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A robot extracts merchant data from the database
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Checks it via the Bing API
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GenAI selects the correct MCC codes
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98% of cases resolved automatically
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Outliers are routed to humans
The result? Customer service time dropped from 10-15 minutes to… well, there is no longer a service time. It happens automatically. 12,000 hours saved annually.
Heidelberg Materials - a case that changes everything
Imagine you are a salesperson at a building-materials manufacturer. Preparing a quote takes you 8 hours.
Heidelberg Materials combined UiPath robots with AI from Peak (acquired by UiPath). Now?
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Quote time: from 8 hours to 30 minutes
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10,000+ hours saved annually
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1.83% improvement in conversion rate
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2% increase in margin
Salespeople sell more, at higher prices. AI analyses conversion probability and optimises pricing. This is not automation - it is human augmentation.
Why is SNOK at the centre of this revolution?
As a partner of both SAP and UiPath, SNOK occupies a unique position. We are not merely an integrator - we are architects of intelligent ecosystems.
Our advantage?
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25+ years of experience in SAP
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Certifications in SAP UI and API automation
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Expertise in KSeF and DRC (Document and Reporting Compliance)
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UiPath Agentic Automation Fast Track Partner status, and Gold Partner status in sales and services
This allows us to build solutions that combine the best of both worlds.
Arnott’s Group - an Australian case, universal lessons
Arnott’s Group in Australia produces more than 1,045 products. They employ 4,000 people.
What did they achieve with UiPath and SAP?
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75% of manual orders - automated
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60 hours a week saved on order processing
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ROI within 10 months
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98% weekly robot success rate
UiPath Document Understanding extracts data from order PDFs, creates orders in SAP, and checks stock availability. An order that used to take 15-30 minutes is now processed automatically.
Three-way invoice matching and automatic posting in SAP allowed them to bring back in-house processes that had previously been outsourced.
British American Tobacco - scale that impresses
79 active software robots. 44 factories. 180 markets worldwide.
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230,000+ working hours saved globally per year
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The system has been running for more than 4 years
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Integration with SAP ERP, Global Leaf Pool, SAP Product Costing
Robots manage recipe and material transfers, product cost calculations, tobacco leaf inventory, and financial transaction recording.
This is not a pilot. This is production at massive scale.
CSL Behring - when seconds save lives
300+ plasma donation centres. Checking donor eligibility used to take minutes. Now? 4 seconds with more than 98% accuracy.
Aaron White, Senior Director of Digital Products, said something important: “We deliberately chose the hardest case. We knew that if this worked, everything else would be easy.”
And they were right. The system runs at 230+ plasma centres across the US, serving 16,000 employees.
SAP + UiPath integration - synergy in practice
In October 2024, UiPath became an official SAP Solution Extension. This is not an ordinary partnership - it is native integration with the SAP Business Technology Platform.
EDF Renewables - when migration to S/4HANA becomes a pleasure
90% test automation for SAP achieved in 5 months. A 70-80% reduction in testing costs. 6x faster deployments - from 2-3 weeks to 2-3 hours.
Silicon Partners deployed UiPath Test Suite with 250 ready-made test scripts. Daily regression tests of critical business processes during the S/4HANA conversion.
Sameer Band, SAP Architect: “Everything was manual, and now we have almost 90% automation. It’s absolutely incredible.”
ROI that convinces boards
A PagerDuty/Wakefield Research survey of 1,000 IT directors shows:
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62% of organisations expect more than 100% ROI from AI agents
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Average expected ROI: 171%
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US companies forecast 192% ROI
McKinsey goes further: the potential economic impact is 13 trillion dollars globally by 2030. That is a 16% increase in global GDP.
But beware - Gartner warns
More than 40% of AI agent projects will be cancelled by the end of 2027. Why?
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Rising costs
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Unclear business value
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Inadequate risk controls
This shows how important it is to choose the right partner. Someone who knows not only HOW, but also WHY and WHEN to deploy AI agents.
The financial sector - where every percentage point counts
Lake Michigan Credit Union processes 5,800+ HELOC applications a year. Collaboration between robots and AI agents delivers:
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A 10-day faster loan cycle time
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15% greater service capacity without expanding the team
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Staff have time for high-value interactions
State Street cut test execution time by 67%. United Wholesale Mortgage automated 90% of mortgage invoice processing. WEX saved 2.7 million dollars through its automation programme.
SAP announces specific agents for finance
Cash Management Agent - analyses daily bank statements, automates reconciliations. Potential savings: up to 70% of finance team time.
Dispute Resolution Agent - handles incorrect invoices, missing credits, and duplicate payments. Automates email communication in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.
Manufacturing - where AI agents really shine
Siemens has deployed Industrial Copilots:
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Planning Copilot optimises production schedules
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Operations Copilot delivers real-time analytics
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An agent orchestration layer with a master controller
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90% touchless processing
Smart Press Shop GmbH uses Joule with SAP Digital Manufacturing to automatically identify defects on pressing lines. Real-time anomaly detection increases production accuracy and reduces waste.
Logistics - millions in savings
C.H. Robinson - 30+ generative AI agents automate more than 3 million tasks across the freight lifecycle. End-to-end shipment execution with significant efficiency gains.
ITS Logistics built the ContainerAI platform:
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99.8% of container moves managed successfully
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Tens of millions of dollars saved on demurrage and detention
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AI predicts demand and repositions trailers in real time
PepsiCo, using AutoScheduler AI, achieved a 12% increase in warehouse moves per hour.
Retail - personalisation on steroids
McKinsey forecasts that agentic commerce will generate up to 1 trillion dollars in US B2C revenue by 2030. Globally? 3-5 trillion.
Walmart launched the Intelligent Retail Lab - AI agents monitor shelves, track stock levels, detect shortages, and alert staff in real time.
Sephora uses AI agents to analyse customer data and provide personalised product recommendations.
H&M has deployed a virtual shopping assistant, reducing abandoned carts.
Adobe reports a 1,950% year-on-year increase in traffic from chat interactions during Cyber Monday 2024.
HR - the end of paperwork
Swiss Insurance Provider - 6 people handled 100,000 HR events a month. After deploying UiPath RPA:
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85% reduction in processing time
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Zero errors
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25% reduction in manual work
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ROI within 4 months
Global IT Firm cut onboarding from 30 minutes per hire to… 3 minutes. A 90% reduction in time, zero errors, 100% scalability.
Covestro achieved 95% accuracy in automated sick-leave processing. 50% straight-through processing. An 85% reduction in time per case.
What does the future hold?
Short term (2025-2026)
Gartner predicts that 40% of enterprise applications will have task agents by the end of 2026 (up from less than 5% in 2025).
Medium term (2027-2028)
33% of enterprise software will have agentic capabilities. 15% of everyday business decisions will be made autonomously.
Long term (2029-2035)
AI agents will account for 31% of the total generative AI market by 2030. 30% of enterprise application software revenue will come from AI agents by 2035.
IDC forecasts global AI spending rising from 307 billion dollars in 2025 to 632 billion by 2028. Spending on AI agents will reach 1.3 trillion dollars by 2029.
Challenges that remain
Integration with legacy systems (cited by 60% as the main barrier). Concerns about risk and compliance (60%). Lack of technical expertise. Unclear use cases. Data-quality problems.
But the momentum is undeniable:
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92% plan to increase AI funding within 12 months
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79% of organisations have already adopted AI agents
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96% plan to expand their use of AI agents
What does this mean for Polish companies?
As SNOK, we see enormous potential in the Polish market. Our experience with UiPath, SAP, NVIDIA, KSeF and SAP BTP positions us ideally to help Polish enterprises through this transformation.
The question is not whether to deploy AI agents. It is how quickly and effectively you can do so before competitors overtake you.
Our advice?
Start small, but think strategically. Choose the one process that hurts the most. Automate it with AI agents. Measure the ROI. Show the board.
Then scale.
Because this is not hype. It is not a bubble. It is a fundamental change in how enterprises operate. And those who understand this first will win.
The era of agents is already here
Let’s stop talking about “the future of AI”. The future is now. Suncoast Credit Union is already saving millions. Bosch is already increasing productivity by 20%. Fiserv is already automating 98% of processes.
The question is: when will you join this revolution?
At SNOK we are ready to be your guide through this transformation. With our expertise in SAP and UiPath, our certifications in UI and API automation, and our experience in KSeF and AI - we are the partner you need.
Because in the age of AI agents, it is not about the technology. It is about how technology empowers people.
And that is the future we are building. Together.
Want to learn more about how AI agents can transform your business processes? Contact the SNOK team. We are ready to show you how to move from automation to augmentation.