SAP Chief Quantum Officer: AI is about to commoditize intelligence. Better decisions will be the next competitive advantage
From my vantage point, I repeatedly see the same initial bottleneck in enterprise quantum work. It is rarely access to a processor.
Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming an essential component for large corporations. In a few years, most major companies will have access to similar predictive abilities. However, once prediction becomes a commodity, it will no longer provide a competitive edge. The real future lies in deciding what actions a company should take, given its objectives, constraints, uncertainties, and interdependencies among its functions.
This is the decision-making gap that will determine enterprise value in the next decade. The challenge is that no system was built to solve this problem. Consider the final weeks of a financial quarter when the Accounts Payable team limits payments, the Accounts Receivable team accelerates collections, and the sales team decides on deals, disputes, and concessions.
While AI can predict likely outcomes and flag risks, it cannot determine the optimal course of action. The real challenge is finding the best combination of actions that maximizes overall enterprise performance across all dimensions. This is a decision-space problem, not just a prediction problem. Companies simplify complex decisions by reducing scenarios, excluding interactions, and optimizing functions separately.
However, this approach distorts the actual business problem. A new enterprise technology category is emerging to address this gap: Enterprise Decision Computing. It transforms business decisions, including possible actions, objectives, constraints, uncertainties, interdependencies, and consequences, into a computable entity that can be optimized as a whole.
This approach is different from Operations Research, which solves defined problems, and it represents a continuous, governed, and improved enterprise decision layer. Enterprise Decision Computing is relevant today, even without quantum computing. Classical optimization, simulation, and AI can already handle richer decision models than most companies currently use.
The first competitive advantage is available now. Quantum computing may eventually enhance this approach, but its role will be to enrich the decision model, not create it from scratch. The real competitive advantage begins with the decision model, and quantum will play a role in extending its richness and complexity.
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