Do you recognize the footpaths branching off the walkway in this photo?
Urban planners call these “desire paths”, and see them as valuable data, not defiance. Many start with desire paths, then build walkways where people have shown they are needed.
Desire paths echo the first of three important trends in our industry. It’s how we—SAP and our customers—are shaping future SAP products together. Here is a look into these three important trends:
1. SAP Customers and Users are becoming co‑creators through feedback, intent and intelligence
Just as human needs shape paths through a landscape—AI-supported products increasingly allow customers to shape their workflows through product feedback, expressed intent and configuration more than traditional feature requests.
Users convey desired workflow and outcomes and systems adapt (“I need this process in a different order, so that I can start here and end up with this output and that outcome.”). This transforms requestors into co-creators. Product boundaries ultimately become fluid, dynamically composed by AI agents.
2. Continuous in‑context feedback
While Customer Councils and other high-touch engagements are tremendously valuable, continuous in‑context feedback collection—like Joule chat and our PX In-Product Surveys—add low-touch sentiment and urgency signals, giving us depth where needed and scale where possible. Our transformation is built on this foundation of over 12 million in-product feedback records collected since 2020, including 4.4 million in 2025 alone.
Adding multimodal signals like usage telemetry and user behavior analytics helps build a holistic view of users’ desire paths.
3. AI‑augmented insight turns noise into decision‑grade signals
As feedback volumes and data sets continue to grow, AI-powered analytics tools help us see patterns that matter, where to investigate further, and where to act. Our AI platform helps us cluster and triangulate feedback at scale, with User Behavior Analytics validating feedback topics against observed user behavior.
Market-driven, customer-centric roadmaps are impacted by our SAP Continuous Influence programs. Innovation now flows from real user feedback, not boardroom assumptions—breaking new ground and removing obstacles along the way.
These inputs, other crucial market signals, and the data relationships they reveal through analytics, help us prioritize actions and investments based on strategic goals, context and maximizing customer value.
Our vision: An Intelligent Feedback Ecosystem
We are harmonizing the most important feedback and telemetry data channels to reduce noise and maximize insights as we transform the development lifecycle into an innovation flywheel that moves the Autonomous Enterprise.
In just one 2025 example, SAP Sales Cloud delivered 8 roadmap items and 60 other items based on specific Customer Influence feedback, all backed by PX in-product user feedback.
AI-powered analytics are central to this transformation—finding insights in sentiment, intent and behavior for actions that maximize the value of customer investments.
Product teams balance feedback, telemetry, other market signals, strategy, and product standards. Not all feedback is actionable immediately, but closing the loop with customers is vital to an intelligent feedback ecosystem.
Knowing where your feedback went, and the impact it made, grows trust and commitment to keep sharing feedback.
So please keep sharing your feedback. Encourage users to leave in-product feedback. These are all vital steps on the path to future enterprise experiences.
Join us at SAP Sapphire in Madrid!
We would love to hear your comments and questions below—and to discuss this shared future in person
during our Strategy Talk — Feedback to Delivery: How Customer Feedback Shapes SAP Products
and at our Demo Station at SAP Sapphire Madrid!
