Generative AI with SAP – Part 2: Components of SAP Business AI

[Raja_Gupta1]

This blog is part of the series Generative AI with SAP, which is focused on understanding how SAP is leveraging AI and generative AI across its portfolio.

In this series we are learning:

• How SAP is leveraging AI and generative AI across it’s portfolio.
• What SAP Business AI is and how SAP partners and customers can use it?
• What is SAP AI Core? What is SAP AI launchpad? What is Joule? etc.
• What role SAP BTP plays in SAP's AI strategy? ... and many more.

To make it easy to understand, the blog series is divided in small parts. Each blog requires maximum 10–15 minutes to learn.

• Part 1 – Introduction to SAP Business AI 
• Part 2 – Components of SAP Business AI [Current blog]
• Part 3 – Joule, SAP’s Generative AI Copilot
• Part 4 – AI Foundation on SAP BTP 
• Part 5 – Introduction to SAP AI Core
• Part 6 – Introduction to SAP AI launchpad
• Part 7 – Get Started with SAP AI Core and SAP AI Launchpad
• part 8 - Hello World using SAP AI Core
• Part 9 – Overview of Generative AI Hub
• Part 10 – SAP HANA Cloud vector engine
• Part 11 - RAG, a real-life use case using SAP AI Core, Generative AI Hub and HANA Vector Engine

This is the 2nd blog in the series, where will learn what are major components of SAP Business AI.

Note: I will publish the subsequent  blogs soon.

Components of SAP Business AI

Major components of SAP Business AI are:

• Joule
• Embedded AI Applications
• AI Foundation

Below image gives a high level overview of each component.

Now, let’s take a close look into these components.

Joule

Joule is:

• An advanced, generative AI copilot
• embedded throughout SAP’s cloud enterprise portfolio
• To deliver proactive and contextualized insights from across the breadth and depth of SAP’s applications and third-party sources

Joule is designed to helps people get work done faster and drive better business outcomes in a secure, compliant way.

Below summarizes major points about Joule.

For more information on Joule, refer to Part 3 – Joule, SAP’s Generative AI Copilot

Embedded AI Capabilities

Under the umbrella of SAP Business AI, SAP is embedding the capabilities of AI across entire SAP solutions. These AI-powered capabilities include matching, intelligent business document processing, personalized recommendations, natural language processing, forecasting and predictions, and many more.

SAP is offering these embedded AI capabilities across all business areas including finance, supply chain, procurement, human resources, sales, marketing, and IT.

Here are some examples:

In Finance, SAP Cash Application allow customers to automate invoice matching. It automates and simplify the order-to-cash process in accounts receivable accounting.

In Supply Chain, SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain allow customers to predict demand reliably with AI-powered demand forecasting.

In Human Resources, Personalized Recommendation, one of the SAP AI Business Services embedded in SAP SuccessFactors enable customers to improve the employee experience at scale.

You may refer to this page to know more about how customers can benefit from AI built into the core business processes — connecting finance, supply chain, procurement, sales, marketing, human resources, and IT as shown in image below.

AI Foundation on SAP BTP

AI foundation on SAP BTP is a set of ready-to-use AI services and tools, which:

• enable customers and partners
• to create AI-powered extensions and applications
• in a reliable, secure, and scalable way

Below image gives a high-level picture of AI foundation.

 Note: For more information on AI foundation, refer to Part 4 – AI Foundation on SAP BTP

SAP’s Partnership with AI Vendors to Provide an Abstraction for SAP Customers

SAP has partnered with leading general-purpose AI vendors and large language model (LLM) providers to ensure that SAP customers are able to reap the benefit of AI innovations without going into individual contract with 3rd party vendors. SAP has made several strategic partnerships with Google, IBM, Nvidia, Microsoft and others.

For example:

SAP is leveraging Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service to provide you access to powerful LLMs like GPT-3 without any 3rd party contract. From Generative AI Hub, you can access these large language models from multiple vendors easily.

SAP has partnered with NVIDIA to leverage its AI hardware and software solutions, for example NVIDIA V100 Tensor Core GPU can be used as one of the underlying infrastructures for SAP AI Core.  

Three Core Principles of SAP Business AI

SAP Business AI is built with three core principles: relevant, reliable, and responsible.

Relevant

In general, "relevant" means that AI systems should provide responses which are perfectly aligned with the user's current needs and context.

For example, if you ask an AI virtual assistant – “Find me a good restaurant to go now”, it should give the list of restaurants best on your specific food preferences and the current time. If it’s a dinner time, and the virtual assistant suggest a breakfast café OR if you are a vegetarian and it suggests a non-vegetarian restaurant, then it’s not Relevant for you.

Similarly, SAP Business AI understand the business context to become more relevant for customers and end users.

SAP Business AI is relevant from day one since it is built in across all SAP applications that customers already use to run their most critical business processes. These embedded AI capabilities are designed keeping business context in mind.

Reliable

In general, "reliable" refers to the consistency, accuracy, and dependability of the AI system in performing its tasks and producing the desired outcomes.

For example, a predictive AI model is considered reliable only if consistently predicts outcomes accurately, whether it's for stock prices, weather forecasting, or patient diagnoses. Or a chatbot is considered reliable only if understands user queries correctly and provides accurate and helpful responses consistently.

Reliability is one of the main core principles of SAP Business AI.

The services and solutions under SAP Business AI are built on rigorous product standards, and enterprise-readiness that customers expect from SAP. These AI applications are trained on industry and business process data, making it more reliable for customers.

Customers can trust the SAP Business AI to perform its intended function accurately, consistently, and dependably.

Responsible

In general, AI system being "responsible" refers to ensuring that AI systems are developed, deployed, and used in a manner that aligns with ethical principles, respects human rights, promotes fairness, and mitigates potential risks or harms.

SAP is deeply committed to AI ethics in line with our core values. SAP Business AI is designed for people to get their best work done, valuing human oversight and agency.

SAP system contains business critical and confidential data. SAP customers trust SAP with their mission-critical business processes and most sensitive data. Therefore, SAP AI applications and services are built using responsible AI. SAP uses a robust ethical framework that guides the development and operations of AI.

What’s Next?

Part 3 – Joule, SAP’s Generative AI Copilot

Disclaimer – All the views and opinions in the blog are my own and is made in my personal capacity and that SAP shall not be responsible or liable for any of the contents published in this blog.