SAP shares climbed after the German business-software group logged strong revenue figures in the second quarter, reassuring investors that growth at its cloud business remains healthy despite fears of disruption from artificial intelligence. The company behind the Concur travel and expense management platform said its current cloud backlog—a closely watched measure of sales that SAP expects over the coming year based on existing contracts—grew 26% at constant currencies, above expectations of around 24%.

"We were expecting CCB to beat the 24% consensus bar, but the 26% result is even stronger than our expectations," Jefferies analysts wrote in a note to clients. Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank's Johannes Schaller said a strong CCB was more evidence that growth should accelerate next year. SAP shares in Frankfurt gained more than 6% in midmorning trading Friday.

However, the stock is down about 35% since January, reflecting caution from some investors who started to question whether rapid advancements in AI could replace the services for which software-as-a-service, or SaaS, companies charge clients. Those fears triggered a major selloff in software stocks dubbed the "SaaSpocalypse" earlier this year.