Skip to content
Tiatra, LLCTiatra, LLC
Tiatra, LLC
Information Technology Solutions for Washington, DC Government Agencies
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Services
    • IT Engineering and Support
    • Software Development
    • Information Assurance and Testing
    • Project and Program Management
  • Clients & Partners
  • Careers
  • News
  • Contact
 
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Services
    • IT Engineering and Support
    • Software Development
    • Information Assurance and Testing
    • Project and Program Management
  • Clients & Partners
  • Careers
  • News
  • Contact

SAP prepares to add Joule generative AI copilot across its apps

By year-end, users of a couple of SAP applications should have the option to ask generative AI copilot, Joule, to help with their work — and the company plans to roll the feature out across all its applications one by one in the years to come.

Clicking on a dedicated button in compatible SAP applications will open up the Joule interface, which will then accept input in a variety of ways. Users can type their request in natural language, click on buttons for suggested actions, or enter dates from a calendar picker. Joule will respond accordingly with text, graphics, and tables drawn from SAP or external data sources, or with links to other applications and workflows.

Access to the Joule interface will be included in existing SAP software license agreements, but the generative AI use cases that Joule calls on will be priced based on their business value, SAP chief marketing and solutions officer Julia White said.

While SAP is opening up its AI assistant to the wider internet, it’s taking care to protect customers’ data. No customer data will be used to train external foundational AI models, said Bharat Sandhu, the company’s SVP for AI and application development platform. The company will host its own large language models (LLMs) in its own data centers where possible, and any data sent out to external LLMs for processing will be masked or anonymized, he said.

Other major enterprise software vendors have made similar generative AI announcements this month, with varying degrees of precision and precipitation in their timelines.

Salesforce went first, saying it will add a conversational AI assistant, Einstein Copilot, to the right-hand rail of all of its apps. It will conduct pilot trials with a limited number of customers before year-end, but has not said when the assistant will become generally available.

Oracle was next, saying it expected to add generative AI-powered capabilities to many of its cloud applications. Some of these are already in trials with a few customers, but users of its Fusion Cloud ERP, HCM, and customer experience tools may have to wait six months for Oracle’s generative AI features to become generally available, while the wait for users of its Clinical Digital Assistant could be up to a year.

ServiceNow, the last to announce, will likely be the first to deliver. It said it will make its generative AI chatbot Now Assist generally available from September 29 with the Vancouver release of its workflow platform. But where SAP and Salesforce plan to make their generative AI tools available to all users, only ServiceNow customers who purchase special add-on packs for Now Assist will get access to the generative AI functionality, limiting the number of users the company has to serve at launch.

White dismissed the threat from the competition, saying, “We’re aware of lots of claims and lots of hype in the broader ecosystem. We’re focused on delivering the customer value.”

Slow but steady

SAP’s slow-but-steady approach is more typical of the company, and perhaps understandable given the diversity of the company’s product portfolio and the complexity of its code base.

Joule is just one of three main layers in SAP’s AI strategy, said Sandhu. The foundation layer, embedded in its Business Technology Platform, handles orchestration, abstraction of third-party models, and such, while the second layer is composed of AI capabilities embedded in applications.

SAP is already using generative AI to help users create job descriptions or interview questions, process delivery notes, or forecast which clients will default on payments.

The new generative AI interface will eventually sit on top of all of SAP’s applications as a common engagement layer that can call on their existing functions, Sandhu said. But it won’t be available everywhere all at once.

“One of the unique aspects of SAP is it has a vast portfolio of applications,” Sandhu said. “We are rolling it out piece by piece. By next year you’ll see it fully integrated into most of our applications. It just takes time to integrate with all these different applications.”

For now, the company is only committing to making Joule generally available before the end of this year on SAP Start, the home page for its cloud applications, and in SuccessFactors, its SaaS HCM tool.

SAP plans to roll Joule out to the public cloud edition of its S/4HANA application suite early next year.

Customers using on-premises versions of SAP’s applications, even of S/4HANA, will have to wait for access to the generative AI features — perhaps forever. In July, SAP CEO Christian Klein told analysts that SAP’s newest innovations will only be delivered in the public cloud, or in private clouds via its Rise with SAP all-in-one offering.

White reiterated that position at the launch of Joule: “We will be delivering our AI capabilities like Joule as part of our cloud value. Generative AI really only works as part of a cloud model,” she said. 

Energy balance

SAP’s choice of name for its AI assistant — the joule is the SI unit of energy — puts the spotlight on one of the downsides of the increasing use of generative AI: the energy it consumes. SAP has been buying green energy for the data centers that power its own operations for years, and has committed to achieve net-zero carbon emissions along its entire value chain by 2030. Moving its customers to the cloud, where it can run applications more efficiently, is one way it hopes to achieve that, it has said.

Application Management, Artificial Intelligence, CIO, Generative AI, SAP
Read More from This Article: SAP prepares to add Joule generative AI copilot across its apps
Source: News

Category: NewsSeptember 26, 2023
Tags: art

Post navigation

PreviousPrevious post:Zero Trust: Understanding the US government’s requirements for enhanced cybersecurityNextNext post:Mitigating mayhem in a complex hybrid IT world

Related posts

Barb Wixom and MIT CISR on managing data like a product
May 30, 2025
Avery Dennison takes culture-first approach to AI transformation
May 30, 2025
The agentic AI assist Stanford University cancer care staff needed
May 30, 2025
Los desafíos de la era de la ‘IA en todas partes’, a fondo en Data & AI Summit 2025
May 30, 2025
“AI 비서가 팀 단위로 지원하는 효과”···퍼플렉시티, AI 프로젝트 10분 완성 도구 ‘랩스’ 출시
May 30, 2025
“ROI는 어디에?” AI 도입을 재고하게 만드는 실패 사례
May 30, 2025
Recent Posts
  • Barb Wixom and MIT CISR on managing data like a product
  • Avery Dennison takes culture-first approach to AI transformation
  • The agentic AI assist Stanford University cancer care staff needed
  • Los desafíos de la era de la ‘IA en todas partes’, a fondo en Data & AI Summit 2025
  • “AI 비서가 팀 단위로 지원하는 효과”···퍼플렉시티, AI 프로젝트 10분 완성 도구 ‘랩스’ 출시
Recent Comments
    Archives
    • May 2025
    • April 2025
    • March 2025
    • February 2025
    • January 2025
    • December 2024
    • November 2024
    • October 2024
    • September 2024
    • August 2024
    • July 2024
    • June 2024
    • May 2024
    • April 2024
    • March 2024
    • February 2024
    • January 2024
    • December 2023
    • November 2023
    • October 2023
    • September 2023
    • August 2023
    • July 2023
    • June 2023
    • May 2023
    • April 2023
    • March 2023
    • February 2023
    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • October 2022
    • September 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    Categories
    • News
    Meta
    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org
    Tiatra LLC.

    Tiatra, LLC, based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, proudly serves federal government agencies, organizations that work with the government and other commercial businesses and organizations. Tiatra specializes in a broad range of information technology (IT) development and management services incorporating solid engineering, attention to client needs, and meeting or exceeding any security parameters required. Our small yet innovative company is structured with a full complement of the necessary technical experts, working with hands-on management, to provide a high level of service and competitive pricing for your systems and engineering requirements.

    Find us on:

    FacebookTwitterLinkedin

    Submitclear

    Tiatra, LLC
    Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.