At its annual Sapphire 2023 conference, SAP announced new enterprise AI capabilities powered by generative AI. This year, the ERP software company demonstrated how these innovations, whose capabilities have since been expanded, have been integrated into its Business AI portfolio to transform business processes, strengthen the resilience of supply chains and promote sustainability . SAP also returned to its various partnerships with technological leaders such as Microsoft, Google Cloud, AWS and NVIDIA.
Generative AI is now present across its entire Enterprise Cloud portfolio. Integrated into SAP SuccessFactors solutions, it generates reliable information for HR managers for compensation-related discussions, thus enabling better talent and salary management. In SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting, it allows them to create optimized job descriptions and develop personalized interview questions. Integration with Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word allows them to further refine and publish seamlessly.
The forecasting capabilities of generative AI are now within reach of businesses with SAP Sales Cloud solutions. They allow them, for example, to anticipate the combinations of sellers and products most likely to increase their sales. GenAI also improves the operational efficiency of the supply chain by providing companies with real-time visibility across the entire chain: Ericsson announced last April that it would rely on the SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain or SAP solution. IBP.
The expansion of JOULE
At Sapphire 2023, the publisher revealed that it was working on the alpha version of an AI assistant to improve the customer experience and optimize conversion rates as well as the overall operational efficiency of sales, marketing and service teams.
Joule was announced in September 2023 with initial integrations into SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Start. Since then, SAP has integrated Joule into SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, as well as other products including SAP Customer Data Platform, SAP BTP Cockpit, SAP Build, SAP Build Code, and SAP Integration Suite.
In the second half of 2024, Joule is also expected to be available in SAP Ariba, SAP Analytics Cloud and several of SAP’s supply chain management solutions. It will support a growing number of languages, including German, Spanish, French and Portuguese.
At Sapphire, SAP also announced plans to expand Joule’s scope by integrating it with Microsoft Copilot to surface even richer insights.
Strategic partnerships
SAP’s GenAI strategy relies on significantly increasing R&D for other AI use cases, direct strategic investments in startups like it did for Aleph Alpha, Anthropic and Cohere in August 2023 but also on various equally strategic partnerships with technological leaders for more flexibility.
The expansion of its partnership with AWS, its first certified cloud provider, allows SAP to integrate into its AI Core generative AI hub Amazon Bedrock LLMs, the service launched by AWS in April 2023 offering the possibility of customization LLMs according to specific needs and user data, rather than being limited to ready-made models.
Through the strengthening of its partnership with Google Cloud, companies will integrate Joule and SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain with Google Cloud’s Gemini AI assistant models and the Google Cloud Cortex Framework database. SAP will also leverage Meta’s Llama 3 extended language model to generate scripts for custom analytical applications in SAP Analytics Cloud.
With NVIDIA, SAP has established a cross-product partnership to integrate cutting-edge technologies into ready-to-use business applications.
NVIDIA’s AI models will enable SAP to provide precise answers to implementation questions for RISE with SAP solutions, NVIDIA’s infrastructure will manage SAP’s generative AI model for ABAP code generation and APIs NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud will enable the simulation of complex products and manufacturing configurations as industrial digital twins in SAP Intelligent Product Recommendation.
A reinforced commitment to responsible AI
Highlighting the importance of ethics in AI, SAP is committed to UNESCO’s 10 Core Principles on AI Ethics. These principles ensure that AI technologies are developed and used in a manner that respects human rights, promoting equity and contributing to sustainable development.
Transition to the cloud and sustainable development
Recognizing that success in the AI era depends on cloud adoption, SAP is facilitating this transition with initiatives to help customers with complex SAP S/4HANA Cloud transformations. Among the innovations presented, SAP Sustainability Control Tower and SAP Sustainability Footprint Management solutions track carbon footprints at scale and help companies comply with regulatory standards, strengthening their commitment to sustainability.
