SAP’s AI Shopping Spree Puts a Fresh Spin on a Bruised Shareholder Meeting

SAP announces €1B AI lab and Dremio acquisition, proposes 6.4% dividend hike, as stock remains 45% below peak amid market skepticism.

SAP investors heading into Tuesday’s virtual annual general meeting have more than a dividend proposal to chew over. The German software giant capped the day before with a double acquisition announcement that signals just how aggressively it plans to embed artificial intelligence into its core operations — even as its stock languishes nearly 45% below its 52-week peak.

Two Deals, One Strategy

On 4 May 2026, SAP revealed plans to acquire both Prior Labs, a specialist in tabular foundation models, and Dremio, a data-lakehouse platform provider. The Prior Labs deal is the headline-grabber: SAP intends to pour over €1 billion into the startup over the next four years, establishing it as a stand-alone European AI research lab of global scale. The technology, which analyzes structured data to predict business outcomes such as late payments or customer churn, will be woven into SAP AI Core and the Business Data Cloud.

The Dremio acquisition is equally strategic but less flashy. Its open data platform is designed to unify SAP and non-SAP data, addressing what SAP CTO Philipp Herzig calls the real bottleneck for enterprise AI: data readiness, not algorithms. Together, the two deals lay the groundwork for what SAP is calling “Agentic AI” — autonomous systems that can coordinate planning, manufacturing, and logistics in real time.

Both transactions remain subject to regulatory approval, with closings expected in the third quarter of 2026. The Prior Labs deal could close earlier, possibly in Q2.

A Dividend Hike and a Virtual Stage

The AGM itself, held virtually on 5 May, features a proposed dividend of €2.50 per share for fiscal 2025 — a 6.4% increase from the prior year’s regular payout. If shareholders approve, the ex-dividend date is set for 6 May, with payment scheduled for 8 May.

The meeting comes at a delicate moment for the stock. SAP shares edged up 2.7% on Monday to €148.26, but that still leaves them roughly 27% below where they started the year. The 52-week high of €271.60 feels like a distant memory, and the current price is barely 6% above the April low.

Cloud Growth Meets Market Skepticism

The first quarter of 2026 delivered strong operational numbers. Cloud revenue surged 27% to nearly €6 billion, and the non-IFRS operating margin widened to 30%. Management left its full-year cloud revenue target unchanged at between €25.8 billion and €26.2 billion. But the company also cautioned that Q1 growth benefited from one-off effects that are expected to fade in the second quarter.

That warning has done little to calm investor nerves. The RSI, at nearly 76, suggests the stock is technically overbought after a recent bounce, but the deeper issue is structural: the market appears to be pricing in disruption risks from AI rather than the opportunities SAP itself hopes to capture.

Orlando Beckons

SAP is currently showcasing its autonomous supply chain vision at the Gartner Supply Chain Symposium in Orlando, where it demonstrated its own S.Factory as a reference model for AI-driven operations. The bigger event, however, is the Sapphire developer conference, running from 11 to 21 May in the same city. Barclays analyst Sven Merkt sees Sapphire as a critical moment for SAP to convince investors that its AI roadmap is concrete enough to deliver results.

A financial analyst conference with board presentations and Q&A is also scheduled alongside Sapphire. Whether that can shift the narrative will depend on how much detail SAP provides on its AI strategy — and whether the Reltio acquisition, planned for Q2 or Q3 2026 pending regulatory clearance, adds further credibility to the Business Data Cloud story.