SAP is moving full steam ahead in incorporating artificial intelligence into its suite of enterprise cloud solutions. At its Sapphire customer conference, the company announced that later this year, it will soon bring its Joule AI copilot to more of its enterprise cloud applications, specifically SAP Ariba and SAP Analytics Cloud. In addition, SAP is planning to integrate Joule with Microsoft Copilot, helping train its AI on content from Microsoft 365.
“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,” Christian Klein, SAP’s chief executive, says in a statement.
Greater access to Joule in SAP apps
Launched in September 2023, Joule is SAP’s equivalent of Microsoft’s Copilot within Windows 11. It’s available across computing platforms, including desktop and mobile. During a press briefing for its debut, the company once expressed hope Joule would, one day, “power the outcomes of humans and businesses.”
SAP has rapidly been adding support for Joule within its enterprise cloud apps. After initially being integrated with SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Start, the AI has been embedded into SAP’s S/4HANA Cloud (public and private editions), the company’s Customer Data Platform, BTP Cockpit, Build, Build Code, and Integration Suite. But in the second half of 2024, SAP reveals that Joule will be available for its Ariba procurement management software, Analytics Cloud, and “multiple” undisclosed supply chain management solutions.
With Joule part of SAP Ariba, for example, sourcing managers should be able to create requests for proposals from suppliers or vendors much faster through the use of AI. SAP claims provided recommendations will consider cost-effectiveness, carbon footprint impact, local compliance regulations, and past transactions.
And it’s easy to think about the possibilities when incorporating AI with a business intelligence tool.
However, SAP isn’t just extending the number of its apps Joule will support. The company reveals that its AI will soon be multilingual, able to understand and respond to German, Spanish, French and Portuguese queries. It currently only processes English-based prompts. But, because the enterprise application software maker is an international business, it behooves the company to have a polyglot AI assistant.
Joule meets Copilot
SAP knows there are limits to how much knowledge can go into Joule. To beef up its intelligence, provide better recommendations and increase awareness about what’s happening within entire teams and organizations, SAP plans to integrate its AI assistant with Microsoft Copilot. Through this so-called “bi-directional integration,” employees can streamline access to information, having Joule pull info from not only SAP’s suite of apps but also Microsoft 365.
When this will happen is still unclear, though this tie-up makes it easier for workers to switch between multiple AI assistants. The data sync is already done behind the scenes. Those who spend time predominantly within SAP’s app ecosystem can stick with Joule. But those who do not want to abandon Microsoft’s Copilot can stay with their preferred bot.
New AI partnerships
Last week, SAP made headlines by integrating Amazon Bedrock into its AI Core platform and revealing it will soon upgrade its Graviton chips to AWS Trainium and Inferentia. But that’s just one of a number of new partnerships the company is announcing this week at Sapphire.
SAP is sharing that Joule will be integrating Google Cloud’s Gemini and its Cortex Framework’s data foundation. In addition, SAP will incorporate Meta’s Llama AI model to help render highly customized analytics applications and translate enterprise business requirements. Finally, large language models from Mistral AI will soon be supported. These relationships are part of SAP’s vision that Dr. Phillipp Herzig, the company’s chief AI officer, tells VentureBeat in a recent interview. “We have a flexible and open architecture. We entertain a broad range of partnerships…we want to select the best technology for the right purpose.” He explains further that SAP’s customers demand the best models so it’s in everyone’s best interest to be model agnostic.
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