SAP appoints Rachel Hunter as Head of AI, Australia and New Zealand, and reveals the most widely used AI applications across its ANZ customer base
Sydney, 12 August 2026 – The organisations winning with AI are not always the biggest spenders. They are the ones who simplified their operations, built trusted data foundations and acted deliberately rather than waiting for conditions that may never be perfect.
That was the central message at SAP NOW AI Tour today, where SAP SE hosted presentations from more than 20 customers at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney, each sharing stories that span active AI deployments and the foundational transformation work that makes AI possible.
Among those on stage were Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads, Fortescue, SA Power Networks, Woolworths, Zespri, TAFE NSW, Toyota Finance, Taronga Conservation Society Australia, Metcash, Linfox, Rheem and Suntory Oceania.
“We’ve moved past asking whether AI matters,” said Angela Colantuono, President and Managing Director, SAP Australia and New Zealand. “The question now is whether it’s making the difference that actually matters – and the organisations here today have answered that. They are also not waiting for perfect conditions. They are acting now, and that is what sets them apart. Rachel’s appointment reflects our commitment to helping our customers make that same shift.”
SAP appoints Rachel Hunter as Head of AI, ANZ
SAP also announced the appointment of Rachel Hunter as Head of AI for Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). Hunter brings more than 25 years of experience leading cloud, data and AI teams across Asia Pacific and ANZ, most recently as General Manager, Cloud, Data and AI at Davidson.
She also founded DataSeeds Consulting and has held senior leadership roles at Databricks and Oracle. At SAP, Hunter leads AI Customer Advisory across ANZ, helping organisations translate AI ambition into practical, governed and scalable adoption.
“AI has already found its place in Australian and New Zealand business; not in the strategy deck, but in the day-to-day,” said Hunter. “The most widely used applications are helping finance teams process invoices faster, helping marketers personalise connections with customers and helping operations teams catch problems before they escalate. This is not experimental AI. It is already working.”
What Australian and New Zealand businesses are actually doing with AI
SAP’s analysis of the most widely deployed AI use cases across its ANZ customer base for the twelve months to mid-year 2026 shows AI is already embedded in everyday business operations – from tailoring marketing emails to processing invoices and monitoring operations in real time.
The analysis underlines how Australian and New Zealand organisations are embracing AI to automate core business tasks. Finance automation accounts for three of the top five use cases, with AI removing manual, error-prone work from expense processing, invoice capture and compliance. Meanwhile, marketing intelligence is strongly represented, reflecting how deeply AI has already embedded itself in customer engagement, while the presence of AI infrastructure use cases may signal a growing understanding that maximising value from AI is dependent on business context and cross-organisational integration.
The Autonomous Enterprise
SAP reinforced its vision for the Autonomous Enterprise at the event – a future where AI is embedded into the business applications organisations already rely on. Networks of AI agents are increasingly able to understand business context, recommend actions and execute routine work across finance, procurement, supply chain and HR under human oversight, fundamentally transforming the future of work.
