SAP betting big on AI powered business

⇨ Announced expansion of Joule to more SAP solutions

⇨ Partnerships with Google, Meta, Mistral AI and Nvidia to build an AI ecosystem

⇨ Bi-directional integration of Joule and Microsoft Co-Pilot connects enterprise and business apps

SAP is continuing its Business AI push with a raft of new generative AI product offerings and AI-focused partnerships with other software vendors. 

Announced at this year’s SAP Sapphire conference, the company’s Joule AI copilot will be added to more of its product portfolio, including SAP Ariba and SAP Analytics Cloud. 

SAP will also look to bolster Joule’s capabilities with plans to integrate it with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, allowing users to use both solutions simultaneously and seamlessly. 

SAP has also announced extended partnerships with Google Cloud, Meta, Mistral AI and Nvidia centred around Business AI. 

“The Business AI innovations we’re announcing at SAP Sapphire in 2024 will redefine the way businesses run,” SAP CEO Christian Klein said. 

“Today’s AI announcements and partnerships build on our commitment to deliver revolutionary technology that drives real-world results, helping customers unleash the agility and ingenuity they need to succeed in today’s fast-moving business landscape.” 

Business AI to drive value 

Examples of the value of Business AI include AI-generated reports in SAP SuccessFactors solutions that give people managers responsibly sourced insights for compensation-related discussions as well as forecasting capabilities in SAP Sales Cloud solutions that predict combinations of salespeople and products most likely to drive sales. Meanwhile, the SAP Business Technology Platform is adding large language models from Amazon Web Services, Meta and Mistral AI to its generative AI hub. This capability in the SAP AI Core infrastructure makes it easier to build generative AI use cases for SAP applications. 

SAP’s generative AI copilot Joule was announced in September 2023 and is now available as part of SAP SuccessFactors solutions, SAP S/4HANA Cloud solutions and others including SAP Build and SAP Integration Suite. Further expansion by year-end will include SAP Ariba and SAP Analytics Cloud solutions. At Sapphire, SAP also announced plans to further broaden Joule’s scope via a bi-directional integration with Microsoft Copilot to surface insights from business applications in SAP and Microsoft 365. 

Reflecting Business AI’s increasing importance, SAP is adopting the 10 guiding principles of the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, which aim to ensure that AI technologies are developed and used in ways that respect human rights, promote fairness and contribute to sustainable development. 

Building an AI ecosystem with partners 

As part of the AI push, SAP is partnering with best-in-class technology leaders to deliver AI to aid supply chain planning, analytics and to create a technology hub to advance generative AI in enterprise and business settings including AI in RISE to SAP implementations, ABAP coding and digital twins. 

SAP and Google Cloud are expanding their partnership, using Business AI to help enterprises better predict and mitigate supply-chain risks to minimize disruptions and maintain optimal inventory levels. The companies will integrate Joule and the SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain solution with Google Cloud’s Gemini models AI assistant and Google Cloud Cortex Framework’s data foundation. 

 SAP will leverage Meta Llama 3 to generate scripts that render highly customized analytics applications in SAP Analytics Cloud. Meta’s next-generation AI model excels at language nuances and contextual understanding, making it an ideal candidate for translating enterprise business requirements into tangible outcomes. 

SAP will also add new large language models from Mistral AI, a global company headquartered in Paris specializing in generative AI, to the generative AI hub capability in SAP AI Core. 

 SAP and NVIDIA Corporation advance a cross-product partnership to embed cutting-edge technologies into enterprise-ready business applications: 

•  As SAP trains Joule to serve as an AI assistant for the RISE with SAP solution implementations, NVIDIA’s state-of-the-art AI models sift through SAP consulting assets to provide relevant and precise answers to implementation-related questions; 
• As SAP embeds Joule in the ABAP Cloud model to generate ABAP code for SAP developers, NVIDIA’s accelerated infrastructure will run, scale, and manage SAP’s generative AI model for ABAP code generation; 
• As SAP infuses generative AI into the SAP Intelligent Product Recommendation solution, NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud APIs enable the simulation of complex manufacturing products and configurations as industrial digital twins. 

Cloud and sustainability announcements 

SAP also revealed initiatives that help customers find partners with the expertise needed for complex SAP S/4HANA Cloud transformations, features that help the world’s organizations measure, manage and execute their sustainability strategies and track carbon footprints at scale using SAP Sustainability Control Tower and SAP Sustainability Footprint Management solutions.