Enterprise architecture data can empower AI agents. At the SAP Transformation Excellence Summit, customers explained how they unlocked AI value to scale EA.
Enterprise architecture data has always been a strategic source of information for your business. It’s where you get a complete understanding of IT inventory, dependencies, business context, and the impact of architecture changes on the business.
EA now stands to benefit from agentic AI in ways architects could once only dream of. Instead of enterprise architecture as a siloed function, it becomes a source of architecture intelligence that both agents and people can reason with, thanks to the MCP server for SAP LeanIX.
Architecture intelligence is about making enterprise architecture data AI-ready and embedding it in every AI agent-employee interaction. This makes enterprise architecture context part of business decisions, amplifying the impact by scaling the value of the practice without additional headcount.
EA is the guardian of architecture decisions, standards, and IT assessments that inform the C-suite and the board. This includes the risk posture of the entire IT landscape, compliance coverage, business criticality, total cost of ownership, tech debt, and depth of complexity in custom-built tech stacks.
However, despite having automated much of the IT data intake, discovery, and maintenance, architects continue to spend time producing custom reports, manually synthesizing data for each function, reviewing requests, and answering questions from business leaders. Expertise and insight remain dependent on enterprise architect’s ability to address such requests in due time.
With SAP LeanIX, this type of research work can be done by AI agents. Using natural language and a reliable semantic layer that agents can use to make sense of EA data, employees can simply ask a question to their LLM and get an answer grounded in verified architecture data, such as:
What applications and AI agents support my business area?
Does this type of AI agent already exist in the organization?
Does it enhance or create AI tech debt?
To learn more about making architecture intelligence available to AI agents like Claude, Joule, and Microsoft Copilot, book a demo of SAP LeanIX:
So what enables architecture intelligence? SAP LeanIX Chief Product Officer Dominik Rose explained there are three pillars of architecture intelligence at the SAP Transformation Excellence Summit in Atlanta:
Context means bringing every EA data source together into an AI-ready repository, rather than scattered across documents, spreadsheets, and individual knowledge. This data can now be collected automatically through out-of-the-box integrations, custom connectors, or through the inventory builder 2.0 – simply drop in any document, diagram or image, and it will become a structured fact sheet, matching the unique definitions of your architecture in the meta model.
Process means EA insights are embedded from the moment any demand or initiative enters the picture. Everyone from developers and solution architects to business leaders and AI agents can align their decisions with live architecture standards and decisions, in full knowledge of what the current IT and business context looks like.
The outcome is when architecture intelligence is embedded in the business and decision-makers can self-serve the information they need to move forward with initiatives. For example, a finance lead can ask an EA-integrated agent "what are we spending on sales and marketing tooling?" and receive the Total Cost of Ownership of both off-the-shelf and custom technologies supporting these functions.
Architecture Intelligence is already delivering results. At the SAP Transformation Excellence Summit Atlanta 2026, two organizations showcased transformative implementations.
These pioneering organizations were experimenting with AI in enterprise architecture before the broader community identified clear use cases. SAP LeanIX met them in their journey as experiments showed promising results, releasing capabilities that helped them innovate and transform enterprise architecture.
At STES Atlanta, Kimberly-Clark and Norfolk Southern showcased their AI agents and how they transformed their EA practice:
When Kimberly-Clark's EA function was taken over by Chris Blackwelder, Senior Director of Enterprise Architecture & Digital Engineering, and Kimberlea Thomson, Information Architect, the team faced a familiar challenge: enterprise architecture was perceived as "the team that always tells us no." The EA function had become a bottleneck rather than an enabler.
Chris Blackwelder and enterprise architect Kimberlea Thompson used the MCP server for SAP LeanIX to connect AI agents to their EA data. The goal was to modernize their practice to become more AI-native, collaborative, and earn a seat at the table when discussing new technology.
The EA team built and launched ARCHie, a Microsoft Copilot Studio agent that puts enterprise architecture knowledge directly in the hands of Kimberly-Clark's community. The agent connects to two key data sources:
the SharePoint site containing standards, best practices, templates, and processes
SAP LeanIX' live enterprise architecture repository, accessed through the MCP server
ARCHie isn't just a chatbot, it's an AI assistant that can answer questions about applications, capabilities, technology standards, EA processes, and team contacts in natural language. Employees can ask questions and receive immediate, contextual answers pulled from curated documentation and Active Directory, complete with links to relevant standards and direct pathways to engage with the EA team.
The impact of ARCHie extends well beyond access. Thompson and her team measure success through four concrete outcomes:
anyone can now ask architecture questions in plain language without learning EA tools, with trusted responses available instantly
ARCHie provides one central entry point, eliminating confusion about which system to check or which architect to ask
routine questions about standards, capabilities, and EA contacts are answered instantly
Kimberly-Clark is putting EA knowledge in the hands of their community, democratizing architecture guidance with minimal incremental human effort
"What we really believe is if we're espousing Gen AI and agents, we as EA's better put our fingers on the keyboard and learn about it. When we're writing those guidelines and writing our standards, we're fully versed on them, right? We're really drinking our own champagne," Kimberlea told us.
Norfolk Southern's EA practice was established in 2004, making it a mature function with two decades of operation. However, over those years, the architecture repository exploded, spanning across multiple documents and websites.
When enterprise architect Darryl Hobson joined in 2022, he was tasked with identifying a better solution. Norfolk Southern selected SAP LeanIX and our solution now tracks 300 business applications supporting 422 business capabilities, and 550 IT components, with 700 active users.
Recently, Hobson and his team integrated NSIQ, Norfolk Southern's generative AI assistant, with the SAP LeanIX repository through the MCP server. NSIQ isn't solely focused on architecture, however.
NSIQ is a multi-domain assistant that connects to HR, customer applications, operating rules and manuals, their configuration management database, and SAP LeanIX. The assistant can answer questions using approved internal documents, guide users to the right resources, and provide quick, validated information across all these domains.
Through NSIQ's SAP LeanIX integration, users can ask questions or inquire about governance items and receive immediate answers. The team has now achieved 99% coverage for business capabilities.
EA is now engaged from start to finish in the project lifecycle, and architecture data accessible through both SAP LeanIX and NSIQ. Norfolk Southern has made architecture context available to anyone supporting decision-making across IT and business operations.
Enterprise Architecture data has always played a strategic role, but it doesn’t always have the reach it needs to have. AI changes that by breaking through technical silos, and skill and expertise barriers.
This is EA's next defining moment, and it's already here. Seize the opportunity to transform traditional governance and documentation into a live, strategic capability embedded in every initiative from day one, enabling better decisions, alignment, and business outcomes.
To learn more about architecture intelligence, book a demo of SAP LeanIX: