At the TechEd 2024 conference, SAP announced a series of groundbreaking innovations in the field of business artificial intelligence (AI). These updates range from collaborative agents and enhanced data understanding capabilities to generative AI tools for developers using SAP Build.
SAP unveiled these transformative AI advancements within the core systems that drive 87% of global commerce, positioning its AI tool, Joule, at the center of a new approach to business operations. During SAP’s annual TechEd conference, the company introduced powerful new features that complement and expand Joule, including shareable AI agents equipped with customizable skills to tackle complex, cross-disciplinary tasks.
Other innovations revealed include the SAP Knowledge Graph, a solution that helps developers better understand and fully harness the value of SAP data by connecting it to a business context. This new knowledge graph, set to be available through SAP Datasphere and Joule in the first quarter of 2025, will offer users enhanced business insights by mapping relationships between the vast amounts of data within SAP systems. It empowers organizations to make better decisions with their data by significantly reducing the complexity of manual data modeling and minimizing the risk of inaccurate or irrelevant results.
Additionally, SAP showcased new tools for developers aimed at driving further innovation in business AI. Features like code explanations and documentation search within SAP Build will reduce development time for Java and JavaScript developers.
"A New Partnership Between Humans and AI"
“SAP’s innovations drive real business outcomes, and the advancements we’ve introduced help customers harness the power of AI, data, and new development solutions to accelerate growth,” said Mohammed Alam, a member of SAP’s Executive Board for Product Engineering. “Building on SAP’s unparalleled business and technological expertise, the AI innovations we’re announcing at TechEd create a new partnership between humans and AI, transforming processes in modern businesses.”
A year after its launch, Joule has outlined a clear vision for how businesses are expected to operate, becoming deeply integrated into SAP’s solutions. SAP is introducing collaborative AI agents that expand Joule’s capabilities, supporting 80% of the most common business tasks in SAP systems.
These multi-agent collaborative systems combine specialized AI agents to tackle specific tasks. The systems enable collaboration between managers in complex workflows while aligning organizational strategies to meet shared goals. SAP is enhancing Joule with several collaborative AI agents that will bring their unique expertise across business functions to execute complex workflows jointly. These AI agents will boost productivity by consolidating knowledge and information, allowing employees to focus on areas where human creativity thrives.
During TechEd, SAP presented two use cases for AI: One demonstrated how autonomous AI tools can analyze and resolve various business management disputes, including incorrect or missing invoices, uncredited refunds, and delayed or duplicate payments. The second case illustrated the use of autonomous AI agents to streamline critical financial processes such as automating bill payments, processing invoices, and updating financial records, while quickly addressing inconsistencies or errors.