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SAP Joule and Recent Developments in SAP Generative AI

Explore SAP Joule & the latest SAP generative AI developments. Discover how AI is revolutionizing business efficiency.

Generative artificial intelligence – three ubiquitous words as companies rush to adopt advancements pioneered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, publicly available since November 2023. With the promise of automating mundane tasks, major tech players are exploring ways to maximise productivity, increase profits, cut administrative tedium, and revolutionize technology interaction. SAP, a global leader in enterprise management, is no exception. During its Sapphire conference in June 2024. SAP unveiled the roadmap for its AI enhanced enterprise software suite, signalling a commitment to integrate AI into all core components. Currently, 27000 SAP customers benefit from a plethora of features, with new ones introduced monthly. The highlight, however, is Joule, SAP’s AI assistant.

 

Meet Joule, SAP’s AI Assistant

Inspired by ChatGPT’s success, SAP has developed its own AI assistant, “Joule”. Operating in a secure, closed software environment, Joule can search for authorized information and navigate the SAP landscape using the natural language.  For example, users can ask Joule to find all purchase orders issued after January 1st, 2022, signed by John Smith with the amount exceeding  $2,000, with the item description “spa weekend on company expense” and create a simple report.

Benefiting from SAP’s secure environment and extensive data, Joule is set to rollout across various SAP products.  These included SAP SuccessFactors and the SAP Start site at the end of 2023 and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition in the first half of 2024. Joule will soon be available across all SAP cloud products, driving hyper-automation and reducing tedious tasks. This aligns with the RISE initiative, encouraging customer to migrate from classic SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA to cloud. SAP aims to automate 80% of its most frequently performed transactions by the end of 2024, leveraging Joule’s training on SAP’s knowledge and support hub data, to resolve most SAP related issues.

The current AI product pricing is evolving rapidly with new features being introduced almost monthly. To help estimate the costs, SAP provides a pricing calculator. However, the final price can vary significantly from the initial estimate due to factors like negotiations, loyalty discounts and client-specific agreements. We strongly recommend consulting with licensing experts to secure the best deal when purchasing new products like Joule or any generative AI functionalities.

 

SAP AI for Business

With a gradual rollout of AI features, SAP aims to increase the customer’s productivity and efficiency. AI can process vast amounts of data from various sources, offering statistically probable outcomes. In SAP’s structured data environment, AI helps users navigate data through natural language prompts, automating  searches and reporting when the user knows how to ask specific questions. Similarly, computer vision helps with tasks like data entry through optical character recognition from uploaded invoices, enhancing error detection. When trained with huge image quantities, the SAP computer vision model can immediately spot manufacturing inaccuracies, improving supply chain management.

SAP’s low-code development platform already supports automated bot deployment, though it  requires in-depth knowledge of the processes and technology. AI augmentation allows users to describe functionalities in natural language, enabling the AI assistant to create the required app, akin to having a top tier developer on demand. 

 

Business AI Use Cases from SAP Sapphire Conference

Going beyond these hypothetical scenarios, the SAP Sapphire conference introduced the following Business AI use cases:

Enhancing Human Resources with AI

Joule’s integration into SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting accelerates the hiring process, enabling managers to create compelling, bias-free job descriptions 90% faster. New capabilities across the SAP SuccessFactors HCM suite enhance the employee experience by providing instant answers to HR policy questions and streamlining HR processes using natural language.

Financial Management Revolution

In finance, SAP Business AI enhances activities from payments and expense management to auditing and forecasting. Generative AI in SAP Enterprise Service Management automates processes, reducing costs by up to 70% and accelerating service requests by up to 30%. Joule in SAP Fiori applications summarizes data and produces visual narratives, helping financial controllers to manage operations more efficiently. 

Agile and Sustainable Supply Chains

AI capabilities in SAP Transportation Management expedite freight verification and documentation, speeding up delivery note processing and reducing truck idle time. Joule will soon analyze planning runs and suggest corrective measures in supply chain management, enhancing efficiency and resilience.

Proactive Procurement

AI in SAP Ariba Category Management reduces onboarding time for new category managers and accelerates strategy development. New generative AI capabilities in SAP Fieldglass streamline external workforce recruitment, reducing work orders and enabling rapid responses to workload fluctuations.

Sales, Services, Marketing, and Commerce

SAP Business AI enhances productivity and customer engagement across sales, services, marketing, and commerce. The SAP CX AI Toolkit streamlines content creation and data analysis, increasing e-commerce team productivity by 50% and improving order values and conversion rates. Predictive forecasting in SAP Sales Cloud aids strategic decision-making by predicting deal closures and providing actionable insights.

IT and Platform Advancements

Generative AI in SAP Build Code accelerates application development, allowing developers to generate data models and automate business logic using natural language. Joule’s integration with ABAP Cloud (the programming language for SAP business applications) boosts developer productivity and simplifies SAP application extensions.

Process Innovation and Integration

SAP Business Technology Platform is strengthened with AI capabilities that accelerate process innovation. Joule’s integration with SAP Build Process Automation and SAP Signavio enables users to generate automations and process models using natural language, streamlining operations and reducing overhead.

 

A few closing remarks

While SAP may not be immediately associated with AI, its innovations and strategic partnership with tech giants like Google, Microsoft an OpenAI  position it at the forefront of AI integration. AP’s initiatives, including Joule and SAP BTP services, promise to enhance efficiency and profitability for businesses. The true test will be their practicality and usefulness for everyday employees.

Follow our posts for the latest SAP AI innovations.  Contact us to explore SAP’s AI functionalities, pricing, and licensing and enhance your AI portfolio.

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