SAP Freezes All Travel And Hiring Except For The Thing Causing The Freeze

WALLDORF, Germany — SAP, one of the world's biggest software companies, suspended most travel and hiring last month because of AI's soaring cost, with the sole exception being travel and hiring related to AI.

The policy, described in an internal email obtained by 404 Media, permits an employee to fly to a conference about AI spending but not to visit a customer. It permits the company to hire someone to manage AI costs but not someone to do the work the AI was purchased to accelerate. A current SAP employee confirmed the bans remain in effect and were raised again at a recent global employee meeting, which everyone attended remotely, because of the travel freeze.

The same employee said SAP is now rolling out a newly created AI tool to the entire company, "which I can only imagine massively increases the costs." The tool qualifies as an AI-related expenditure and is therefore exempt from the freeze it will make worse. Nobody at the company has been able to identify the point at which this loop terminates, though the exemption list suggests it does not.

SAP is not alone. Other firms have begun throttling employees' AI usage as bills spiral, an approach that treats the software sold as a labor multiplier the way a landlord treats a tenant who leaves the lights on. The savings, when they arrive, will be measured against a baseline that no longer exists.

At press time, the only SAP employees permitted to board a plane were the ones going to explain why nobody else could.

Based on reporting by 404 Media.