The AI Ghost in the SAP Cockpit
The AI Ghost in the SAP Cockpit: How SAP is Redefining the User Experience with Agentic AI and the NASA Psychology Behind Adoption
The Original Ghost in the Cockpit Theory
In aviation, the “ghost” wasn’t supernatural — it was automation.
When flight decks filled with computers in the 1970s–1990s, pilots faced an identity crisis.
Autopilot and flight management systems introduced invisible logic between human intent and aircraft behaviour. Pilots began saying they were “flying the computer that flies the airplane.”
At first, accidents exposed the tension: some pilots distrusted automation and overrode it; others trusted it blindly and failed to understand what the machine was doing leading to accidents and crashes.
The industry responded by redesigning the cockpit — not around code, but around cognition.
Enter Dr Iya Whiteley - What she defined in Avionics works for complex enterprises
Dr Iya Whiteley — aviation and space psychologist, collaborator with ESA and NASA — has spent her career studying how humans make decisions under pressure, and how technology can amplify that ability rather than erode it.
Her research bridges psychology, human factors, and interface design, all focused on one thing: keeping the human at the centre of increasingly intelligent systems.
She talks about “transferring expert intuition” — capturing the mind of a seasoned astronaut, surgeon, or pilot, and amplifying it through data-driven systems without losing the human touch.
Her work represents the shift from automation to augmentation — not replacing the pilot, but elevating their cognition.
Transformations are marathons, not sprints. But many organisations run them as sprints strung endlessly together. Chronic stress elevates cortisol, impairing memory, learning, and focus.
This is why training doesn’t stick, why process adoption falters, and why even well-structured plans collapse into reactive governance — constantly firefighting dates and budgets instead of steering architecture, data, and benefits.
Why the AI Ghost in the Cockpit Matters
This time, the cockpit isn’t 30,000 feet above the ground — it’s the digital control room of the modern enterprise.
The AI ghost matters because it’s the first true test of trust between human and machine inside our most critical systems.
If we get this wrong, businesses won’t just face user resistance — they’ll face something worse: cognitive collapse.
Users will disengage from decision-making. Processes will become opaque. Accountability will dissolve into algorithms no one really understands.
Aviation learned — often painfully — that mistrust in automation costs lives, and overtrust costs control.
Enterprise technology is heading for the same turbulence.
We’re building systems that think, decide, and act in our name.
The question isn’t whether they’ll take the controls — it’s whether we’ll still understand the flight plan when they do.
What Aviation Can Teach Enterprise Software About Trust, Control, and the Human–Machine Partnership
The Uneasy Flight of Fiori
For over a decade, I’ve watched organisation after organisation struggle to adopt SAP’s Fiori interface. On paper, it’s everything users asked for — intuitive, role-based, mobile-ready, and logical (not intelligent).
Yet in practice, many S/4HANA programmes retreat to the comfort of the old SAP GUI and its trusty T-codes. The reasons given — speed, stability, training — are surface-level. Beneath them lies something deeper: a psychology of mistrust.
Fiori feels alive, unpredictable, even intrusive — as if the system is quietly thinking for you.
That unease in the cockpit is the same one pilots felt decades ago when automation first arrived.
The same tension between trust and control, between human skill and machine intuition, is now playing out across the enterprise.
What pilots once called “the ghost in the cockpit” has arrived in our SAP ERP landscapes
The New Ghost: SAP
Today, that same transformation is unfolding — not in a flight deck, but in the enterprise.
SAP is rebuilding its user experience around agentic AI — systems that don’t just respond, but act.
SAP Joule and WalkMe are designed to understand business context, surface insights, and even initiate workflows on your behalf.
This isn’t just a new interface — it’s a new cockpit.
The dashboards, reports, and transactions of the past are being replaced by conversation-driven orchestration, intent-based automation, and AI-mediated decision loops.
The ghost has returned — only this time, it speaks procurement, finance, and supply chain.
Lessons from Aviation: Trust, Transparency, and Handovers
Aviation learned three lessons from its haunted cockpit — lessons enterprise AI must now take seriously:
Trust is everything.
Pilots had to see and understand what the system was doing — not just believe it was right.
Enterprise AI must be explainable, not mystical.Transparency prevents over-automation.
Hidden logic once killed people. Hidden AI logic will kill business confidence.Human control must never disappear.
The best cockpit designs preserve manual override.
The best enterprise AIs will preserve human judgment and accountability.
The Cognitive Redesign of Enterprise UX
SAP’s redesign isn’t cosmetic — it’s cognitive architecture.
It’s doing for business systems what Airbus and Boeing did for flight decks: reducing cognitive load, integrating fragmented instruments, and creating a unified experience.
Tomorrow’s users will interact through:
Context-aware copilots that anticipate next steps
Autonomous agents that execute and learn from outcomes
Conversational interfaces that adapt and evolve
The irony?
We’re right back at aviation’s 40-year-old question:
If the system flies itself, what’s the role of the pilot?
The Consultant’s Dilemma
For consultants, this is existential.
Just as pilots evolved from “stick-and-rudder” operators to systems managers, consultants must evolve from process implementers to AI orchestrators.
The real value now lies in training the ghost — shaping data models, defining decision boundaries, and teaching the system how the business thinks.
Those who resist will become passengers on their own projects.
Those who adapt will become flight instructors for the enterprise AI age.
Is the Consumer / User Ready?
The real question isn’t whether SAP is ready — it’s whether the user is.
Employees and consumers alike will soon live with unseen, agentic systems making micro-decisions on their behalf.
Are we ready to trust AI ?
Do we understand AI well enough to intervene?
Will we know when AI is wrong?
Just as pilots learned to fly with invisible hands on the controls, business users must now learn to work with digital ghosts — systems that think faster, see more, and sometimes, decide first.
The Flight Ahead
The ghost in the cockpit changed aviation forever.
It made flight safer, faster, and more efficient — but only after decades of redesign, retraining, and rethinking the human–machine relationship.
Now, SAP is attempting the same journey — redefining the enterprise cockpit around human–AI collaboration.
The question is no longer whether there’s a ghost in the system.
It’s how we choose to fly with it and AI.
How to Mitigate the AI Ghost: Dragon ERP’s Phase Zero Adoption Strategy
The arrival of agentic AI in ERP isn’t a technology problem — it’s a trust problem.
Before organisations can exploit what SAP Joule can do, they must first help their people understand why these systems behave the way they do.
At Dragon ERP, we call this Phase Zero — the missing layer between technology readiness and human readiness.
Phase Zero: The AI User Adoption Strategy
Map the Human–Machine Interface
Identify where AI replaces judgment, where it assists, and where it must stay transparent. Every interaction is a trust checkpoint.
Design for Cognitive Clarity
Users must understand why every recommendation or automation occurs. Visibility builds confidence — opacity breeds resistance.
Train the Co-Pilots, Not Just the Pilots
Adoption isn’t about which buttons to press. It’s about learning to collaborate with intelligent systems.
Establish AI Ethics and Governance Early
Define what “acceptable autonomy” means before the ghost starts flying.
Run Controlled Flights
Pilot AI experiences in safe, observable environments — measure trust as much as efficiency.
When applied well, Phase Zero doesn’t exorcise the ghost — it integrates it.
The goal isn’t to silence AI, but to make it a trusted co-pilot, not an unseen hand on the controls.
About the Author
Alisdair Bach is a SAP S/4HANA Transformation Programme Director and enterprise architect, and founder of Dragon ERP, a firm specialising in recovering and re-architecting complex ERP programmes.
With over two decades leading global SAP initiatives across finance and lead-to-cash, Alisdair has earned a reputation for stabilising failing programmes and helping organisations rediscover purpose and performance.
His current focus is on AI-driven ERP transformation, exploring how cognition, trust, and ethics define the next generation of enterprise systems — what he calls the “Thinking ERP.”
Through Dragon ERP, he helps clients bridge the gap between automation and adoption, ensuring that the ghosts in their digital cockpits become allies, not adversaries.
