SAP is embracing the age of AI and taking significant steps to enhance its AI capabilities. At the TechEd conference in Bengaluru, India, the German software giant unveiled various tools and capabilities designed to empower developers and enable them to build custom AI-powered applications.
Doubling Down on AI Efforts
SAP is doubling down on its AI efforts, with the introduction of AI-infused pro-code tools that accelerate application development. These tools aim to enhance productivity and provide developers with the means to build advanced AI applications.
When customers think about AI and SAP, we’re going to give three different ways to experience it,” said JG Chirapurath, Chief Solutions and Marketing Officer of SAP. “First will be embedding AI inside the application experience. Second will be Joule, our assistive copilot to help with different tasks. And the third will be the ability for customers to create their own AI use cases – to meet needs bigger than what we can think of.”
A Comprehensive AI Foundation
To facilitate the development of AI applications targeting various business use cases, SAP introduced an all-encompassing AI foundation hub. This hub serves as a one-stop-shop for teams to build LLM (Language, Logic, and Machine Learning) applications easily.
“Our aim is to provide an AI foundation that allows customers to create their own AI use cases according to their specific needs,” explained Chirapurath. “By offering a comprehensive AI development environment, we empower enterprises to explore the full potential of AI.”
Build Code: Revolutionizing Application Development
SAP is revolutionizing application development with Build Code, an innovative solution that embeds AI-based generation. This powerful tool can generate code, data models, app logic, and test scripts for Java and JavaScript applications.
It provides one stack for Java and JavaScript development, which means that our SAP developers do not have to look outside the SAP stack to go find a piece of software developer toolkit to do that. The second thing it does is that you basically get to reuse code snippets from Build solutions as there are common architectural underpinnings. And the third thing we’re doing is offering interoperability with ABAP (advanced business application programming) cloud environment so you can do side-by-side development.
SAP executives, while demonstrating the technology, revealed that Build Code has the potential to enhance developer productivity by 40-60%. The solution is set to become generally available in Q1 2024.
Enabling Custom AI-Powered Applications
SAP understands the importance of empowering developers to build custom AI-powered applications tailored to specific business scenarios and use cases. To facilitate this, SAP introduced vector database capabilities in HANA Cloud and AI Foundations.
The vector capabilities store contextual business data, such as invoices in PDFs, images, and documents, in vector format within the HANA Cloud. This enables easy search and discovery of relevant data for training AI models.
Our promise with HANA Cloud has always been to add all the different features and modalities that you need for the price of one database. That’s one of the reasons why we call it multimodal.
SAP’s AI Foundation offers enterprises using SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) access to vector database capabilities in HANA Cloud. This comprehensive solution provides everything needed to create business-ready AI tools, from open-source LLMs to the ability to fine-tune, manage, and monitor AI models.
“Our aim is to empower enterprises to build their own set of AI use cases using contextual data and models of their choice,” explained Chirapurath.
Proprietary Foundation Model
SAP plans to launch its own foundation model to further improve outcomes and tailor AI applications to the specific context and data it holds. This highly tailored model aims to provide enterprises with a fast start and achieve a high level of understanding of processes and context.
It will really understand the processes and the context, and it will give enterprises a fast start. Nothing can be 100%, but our aim is to get it to at least 80-85%.
While SAP is developing its proprietary model, the company remains committed to its partner-first approach in AI. It will continue to collaborate with partner solutions and consider investments or acquisitions strategically when necessary.
Ethical AI Development
SAP emphasizes ethical and responsible use of AI in its development process. The company has an ethics board that evaluates AI developments against ethical standards and government regulations. It ensures the release of AI solutions that prioritize safety and security.
“We have a duty of care towards our customers, and we aim to make compliance easier for them,” said Chirapurath.
