Tapping into GenAI’s potential

⇨ Generative AI is becoming essential for businesses aiming to enhance productivity and streamline data analysis, particularly through PwC's innovative auto-commenting capability which helps derive actionable insights.

⇨ PwC is significantly investing in AI, including a $1 billion commitment to expand its offerings, and is actively helping clients, especially in finance and healthcare, to better use GenAI for business transformation.

⇨ The collaboration between PwC and SAP is focused on leveraging tools like Joule to improve operational efficiency, automate routine tasks and ensure governance and data protection, which are critical to a successful technological integration.

The use of generative AI (GenAI) is becoming critical for businesses on a journey to elevate their productivity with the latest technologies.

As PwC is committed to investing in the future of AI, building on its $1bn investment in expanding and scaling AI offerings to keep people at the forefront of innovation, the international business management consultancy is also assisting SAP users in reimagining their businesses through the transformative potential of generative AI. 

For instance, during the 2024 SAP Sapphire Orlando opening keynote, SAP’s CEO Christian Klein praised PwC’s AI solutions, specifically its auto-commenting with GenAI capability, which narrates and analyzes intricate financial statements, earning high praise as a “really good [AI] engine.” 

PwC’s auto-commenting with GenAI capability

As enthusiasm and investment in GenAI continue to grow, PwC has recently unveiled an innovative technique designed to help businesses quickly derive value from the technology. The approach, known as auto-commenting with GenAI, begins by focusing on a specific area of a business where data insights are needed. 

Many users choose to start with the finance department to uncover insights, such as identifying the most profitable products in each region, improving warehouse management by analyzing inventory levels and purchasing trends or examining workforce dynamics in HR, such as employee tenure or skill sets.

PwC’s method works by automatically detecting anomalies, peaks and troughs in data and then using GenAI to help generate comments explaining the underlying reasons for these patterns. The approach streamlines data analysis, reduces effort and speeds up the journey from data to insight. The findings are then presented on a single dashboard within SAP Analytics Cloud, offering organizations a holistic and user-friendly view of their data.

These capabilities have already helped clients in industries like automotive and healthcare to use GenAI, taking data analysis to the next level.

PwC implementing Joule

Further realizing the potential of GenAI, PwC is currently leveraging Joule as part of the Joule Early Adopter Care program in S/4HANA Cloud, public edition, to receive support with the early implementation and tap into its transformative impact on business operations.

While aiming to get “real-time insights, automating routine tasks, as well as ultimately driving innovation and increasing operational efficiency,” Christian Tietz, advisory manager of PwC Germany, said that his team is testing SAP’s consulting capability for Joule to “further enhance the efficiency of SAP service delivery and allow consultants to concentrate on high-value tasks”.

As part of this close collaboration with SAP, Tietz acknowledged that the importance of governance, security and data protection has intensified, which makes it ever so important for organizations to understand how such technological innovations are processing the input, which security guidelines to adhere to, how potential misuse is going to be prevented and how usage may affect the target operating model already in place. 

“At PwC, we can leverage our profound experience in these areas to accompany our clients on their way to seamlessly integrate Joule into their business processes and to finally facilitate a compliant and effective organizational transformation in this regard,” Tietz said.

In this way, while leveraging the newest and most innovative technologies, organizations can keep their eyes on the prize and cement the crucial considerations on their path to increasing insight and productivity.