Sage, the business software company known for accounting, finance and operational management tools, has partnered with Portuguese startup Augusta Labs to accelerate its global AI Centre of Excellence.
Augusta Labs is an Applied AI Lab based in Lisbon, focused on helping organisations develop and scale AI-led transformation. Under the tie-up, the startup’s multidisciplinary teams will work inside Sage’s product organisation, with a clear mandate: speed up the development, industrialisation and scalability of AI solutions moving into production.
What Sage is trying to ship?
This is a partnership framed around tangible product outcomes rather than experimental demos. This may be put across as follows: it will deliver intelligent automation, real-time insights, and simpler and more effective experiences for millions of Sage customers all over the world.
Sage is also positioning the collaboration as a capability boost, expanding its AI and data engineering depth, while reinforcing its transition toward becoming an “AI-first” company.
Why Sage-Augusta Labs matters beyond one partnership
The tie-up lands at a time when businesses are pushing for technology that does more heavy lifting, faster decisions and deeper automation built into daily workflows.
That pressure has shifted the conversation from “trying AI” to deploying and scaling it reliably. The article cites McKinsey’s The State of AI report, noting that the organisations extracting the most value are typically those that move quickly from experimentation to production and then scale consistently.
Sage’s response, in this case, is straightforward: increase its Applied AI engineering capacity through the partnership with Augusta Labs.
Augusta Labs: a young team, a specific focus
Founded in 2024, Augusta Labs, founded by João Cerejeira and Rodrigo Fernandes, is described as a young team gaining attention by focusing on Applied AI in real business environments, combining “high-speed engineering” with technical rigour and execution capability.
The partnership also places Portugal in the frame. Portuguese engineering teams are expected to sit “in the centre” of developing Sage’s AI Centre of Excellence, language that underlines how central the work is meant to be, and reinforces Portugal’s emergence as an AI talent hub.
A broader hiring-and-talent signal
Sage’s selection of Augusta Labs is presented as part of a larger trend: global multinationals increasingly turning to highly specialised talent outside traditional major hubs to build and scale next-generation capabilities.
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