2024 was the year of AI capabilities for SAP. SAP’s business AI-related capabilities accelerated rapidly in the last quarter of 2024 as SAP rolled out final iterations to features announced earlier in the year and also introduced new, expanded functionalities. While much of SAP’s business AI announcements were centered on generative AI copilot Joule—now integrated with more than 80 percent of the most-used tasks across SAP solutions—AI capabilities are now also available through SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and tools like SAP Build and SAP Signavio.

Fourth Quarter Business AI Updates

SAP's generative AI assistant, Joule, is now integrated with 13 SAP solutions, including SAP Mobile Start, enabling access on iPhones and iPads via Siri. In addition to generally available features, Joule offers early adopter care and private preview capabilities, such as:

• SAP Consulting Capability: AI assistance for interpreting ABAP code, understanding logic, and providing guided learning instructions.
• Joule, Analytical Insights: Business AI delivers analytical insights and answers regardless of data skills.
• The Joule-Microsoft 365 Copilot integration, showcased at Sapphire 2024, is in private preview. It enables seamless SAP task access from Microsoft 365 Copilot and vice versa, with deeper integration expected in the future.

For SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, Joule is now generally available, alongside a beta release of AI-Assisted Cloud Business Add-In Generation, which can be used to increase the efficiency of customizations without requiring deep SAP or ABAP knowledge, The new tool will allow users to identify business add-ins and will provide implementation-ready sample code for the specified business objective. Joule is also generally available in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition 2023 FPS02, with new AI-assisted features for master data governance, sales order monitoring, goods receipt processing, and conversational planning. SAP SuccessFactors users can now automate tasks like writing, translating, and analyzing text, while business AI provides growth recommendations, performance metrics, and streamlined hiring processes with AI-powered assignment creation and job recommendations. SAP BTP now includes:

• Documentation Information Extraction: Automates document processing in 40 languages.
• Generative AI Hub: Integrates LLMs, including Amazon AI models, via SAP AI Core and SAP AI Launchpad.
• SAP Cloud SDK for AI: Integrates AI into Java-based apps.

Business AI enhancements to SAP Build include SAP Build Work Zone and SAP Build Code, offering personalized business sites and generative AI-powered code development. Both are fully integrated with Joule. Additionally, Joule is in early adoption for SAP Signavio Process Collaboration Hub, enhancing user experience with natural language search, best practice KPI recommendations, and detailed help resources.

Business AI in 2025

Although SAP’s inclusion of business AI in RISE with SAP had a minimal impact on adoption in 2023, many customers changed their perspectives in 2024. In 2023, only 14% of respondents to SAPinsider research reported their thinking on RISE with SAP was being affected by the business AI capabilities that are available as part of the offering. This year that number was 42%, which demonstrates that organizations are reconsidering RISE with SAP to access the business AI and generative AI capabilities available as part of the offering. SAP is aware of this shift, and it is anticipated that they will continue to roll out new business AI capabilities across their product suite. While some of these will be specific, such as applications like AI-Assisted Behavioral Insights for Contract Accounting, others will be far reaching, like those accessible via Generative AI Hub in SAP BTP, one of the ways to leverage AI capabilities outside of Joule. SAP will also continue to enhance Joule and ensure that it is available to 100 percent of the most frequently used tasks across SAP solutions. Continuing the momentum, customers should expect more business AI and AI-related announcements from SAP this year as well. That will start with a data-focused announcement that is likely to be made in the first quarter, with more announcements to follow during the year at Sapphire, TechEd, and during other major events. This is because for SAP, connecting AI directly to business processes is their biggest differentiator. Even applications built using Generative AI Hub operate independently of the core business solution. Joule and other business AI capabilities allow customers to integrate AI directly with their day-to-day activities. And by integrating Joule with Microsoft Copilot, business information from SAP solutions is available from outside the SAP ecosystem.

What this means for SAPinsiders

Those not planning to leverage business AI in SAP solutions may find it difficult to move forward without doing so. Embedded AI will be ubiquitous in SAP solutions by the end of 2025, primarily through generative AI assistant Joule, and this will only continue to be enhanced in the future. Given this future, how should SAPinsiders prepare for the future? Put in place an enterprise-wide business AI strategy. Most organizations have at least evaluated AI to see whether there are use cases that can provide a business benefit. However, SAP embeds AI directly into the applications that are used every day. Evaluating whether this will be of benefit and creating an enterprise-wide strategy around business AI will be crucial in understanding whether to utilize AI in SAP solutions or not. Evaluate generative AI’s value in RISE with SAP. Many organizations have changed their thinking on RISE with SAP over the last year. Some of this comes from additional familiarity with the offering while in other cases, organizations want to be able to access the business AI features in the offering. Regardless, organizations should fully evaluate whether the generative AI features in RISE with SAP offer value to the organization, and if their ERP plans should include RISE with SAP. Look for ways to leverage AI in the future. Many organizations struggle to justify the ROI of AI projects because, while it may be easy to find a use case that has value, the cost of these projects can be significant. However, in the future, successful organizations will be those that have found a way to successfully leverage AI in their day-to-day operations. Some of these benefits will be incremental while others may be significant, but not understanding how to utilize AI has the potential to impact operational success.