For CIOs, SAP CoE leads and transformation partners planning RISE with SAP, S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition or Business Suite journeys alongside AI agents. Clean core used to be sold as an upgrade-cost story. In 2026 it is an AI story. AI agents — whether Joule Agents, Joule Studio agents or pro-code agents on SAP BTP — act through APIs, events and business objects. If those interfaces are undocumented, modified or unstable, agents become unreliable after every upgrade. A clean