SAP said it is infusing its Joule generative AI assistant throughout its platform and applications as it made the case that the company is using AI to drive business value.

Speaking at SAP Sapphire in Orlando, CEO Christian Klein had a few missions. First, Klein had to convince customers that its Business AI innovations were worth the upgrades and more than hype. Second, Klein wanted to ensure that SAP wasn't just doing AI because everyone else is. And third, Klein had to get its customer base more excited about programs like RISE with SAP and upgrading to S4/HANA and cloud.

"The Business AI innovations we're announcing will redefine the way businesses run," said Klein, who emphasized partnerships with AWS, Google Cloud, Meta and Microsoft. He added:

"You can see that we are not developing AI just for the sake of AI. Our vision at SAP is to leverage our holistic portfolio to deliver agility at scale, increase productivity of every user and achieve more across the value chain by connecting the material, the financial and the logistic workflows across the industries."

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The general theme behind SAP Sapphire is that AI will be embedded throughout enterprise applications and matter to multiple CXOs role. Klein's keynote was segmented by the appeal to CIOs, CFOs, COOs and HR leaders and the theme was that SAP would deliver insights without surfacing what's underneath--like various large language models and technology like Microsoft's Copilot. SAP's Joule would be the front end that would give data context and insights while automating processes.

SAP's plan is to enable Business AI to leverage multiple models. For instance, SAP and Google Cloud will integrate Joule and SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain with Google Cloud Gemini Models. SAP will use Meta Llama 3 to generate scripts in SAP Analytics Cloud. SAP will also integrate with Amazon Bedrock and add Mistral AI models. SAP's Klein also touted partnerships with Nvidia as well as Apple.

Here's a look at what was announced at SAP Sapphire:

  • SAP's Joule copilot has been integrated into SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, SAP Customer Data Platform, SAP BTP Cockpit, SAP Build, SAP Build Code and SAP Integration Suite.
  • SAP Ariba, SAP Analytics Cloud and multiple supply chain packages will get Joule in the second half of 2024.
  • Joule will be integrated in ERP and Finance apps to close books faster, process documents and provide visualizations and insights.
  • SAP SuccessFactors will get Joule to answer questions about policies and documents.
  • The company said that Joule will roll out to SAP's process mining and automation tools. Joule copilot will be integrated with SAP Build Process Automation, Signavio and SAP Integration Suite to make it easier to automate processes and workflows.
  • SAP is rolling out ABAP Developer capabilities in Joule to generate, complete and test ABAP code. SAP said it is fine tuning models on its proprietary ABAP code.
  • Supply chain applications will get Joule analysis of supply chain planning runs, logistics and transportation management.
  • SAP Intelligent Product Recommendation will get generative AI tools that estimate parameters for products. Plant managers in manufacturing industries will also interact with a digital twin to choose the proper products.
  • Sales and marketing applications will get a suite of AI tools to enhance customer experiences. A generative AI tool builder will be available in SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud.

SAP will use genAI to improve implementations

SAP said that it will leverage Joule for consulting functions leveraging insights from SAP product documentation, community posts and training materials.

According to the company: "This capability is especially critical for supporting customers transitioning to SAP S/4HANA Cloud as part of the RISE with SAP program, helping to accelerate implementation projects and save money." 

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The consulting copilot, available in the second half of 2024, leverages Nvidia's NeMo Retriever microservices to generate insights.

SAP noted that Joule's consulting capabilities have been tested via SAP certification exams. PwC and Deloitte plan to deploy Joule as a consultant.

Partnerships with Accenture, McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group to use SAP Signavio and LeanIX round out the consulting theme.

In addition, SAP said it has expanded its SAP Business Transformation Center to offer a new way for customers to migrate from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.

The new capability gives customers a system to choose a "lean selective data transition" and eliminate legacy data to build a clean foundation. This scenario is included in SAP cloud subscriptions and RISE with SAP.

Constellation Research's take

Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller said:

"SAP is making progress with its AI strategy. Like fellow multi-cloud vendor Workday, SAP is at a speed disadvantage when it comes to AI as it first needs to create an abstraction layer to be able to run AI on all key cloud partners (AWS, Azure & Google Cloud). Microsoft and Oracle have their own clouds for applications. What is still missing is a lakehouse or similar architecture to create a data foundation for AI, and again SAP needs to provide multi-cloud support. Partner support and attention is at a maximum, which is good for SAP customers – with AWS and Microsoft Azure announcing 32TB memory systems to run S/4HANA. It was disappointing that the only keynote customer reference was a SAP customer that was spun out from a larger company. SAP needs to do better to present a North American references for S/4 HANA in the cloud." 

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