SAP and Dremio have agreed to a deal under which Dremio would be acquired, with terms undisclosed and closing expected in the third quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approval. The Germany-based SAP is a global leader in enterprise resource planning (ERP), while Dremio is a data platform designed for agentic AI and analytics. The official framing is that enterprise AI projects keep stalling because of fragmented data, which is often locked into proprietary formats and separated from the business context that makes it useful.
The deal will primarily impact two core SAP products—SAP Business Data Center and SAP HANA Cloud. SAP states that Dremio will turn its data cloud into an enterprise lakehouse using an open table format that allows both SAP and non-SAP data to live on the same data foundation. The goal is to reduce or remove the need for wholesale data movement and format conversion before teams can run agentic AI or analytics workloads. This would potentially eliminate one of the main sources of friction as enterprises seek the organization-wide operationalization of agentic AI.
Data movement remains one of the least glamorous and most expensive elements of enterprise AI innovation, hence why the deal is being sold as a way to let customers act on data where it already lives, instead of pushing everything into a single vendor-controlled repository first. That’s significant in light of increasing worries about vendor lock-in and the growing demand for sovereignty and openness. Currently, the problem for many enterprises is that, while they have the data, they can’t derive sufficient business value from it. As such, both SAP and Dremio are leaning heavily on investments in open-source solutions where enterprises can control and govern data in a way that’s flexible and adaptable—rather than having it live on a ‘closed island’.
The development represents a broader, continuing market shift towards openness. While many software companies have historically relied on their own closed ecosystems, there’s now widespread awareness that large enterprises can’t innovate effectively if they’re locked into a single vendor. Cross-platform flexibility and interoperability are now crucial selling points, and while SAP has strong partnerships with other major data platform vendors, its acquisition of Dremio is unique in that it’s designed to work with data where it already sits.
Data sovereignty concerns add another commercial layer. Enterprises are already subject to data residency and sovereignty rules that dictate where regulated data can physically reside and which jurisdictions govern it. On top of the migration complexity factor, this makes it impractical for many organizations to move all AI and analytics workloads onto one data foundation. Instead, they need control over where their data lives and who has access to it, especially in the EU where digital sovereignty has become a major focus area for lawmakers and regulators.
For software executives, the key lesson from this acquisition is that the market is running out of patience for AI stories that are built on top of convoluted data foundations. Those seeking agents, copilots, or analytics features that translate into real and measurable business value—without needing another lengthy and costly data migration program—need a data layer that can pull information from multiple systems in a way that’s secure, governed, and integrated.