Where previously a few taps opened up access to business power, a simple question is now all it takes. SAP is integrating the AI copilot Joule into its increasingly popular SAP Mobile Start app, enabling users with smartphones or tablets to interact with SAP applications in natural language.
A chat with the AI copilot can reveal the latest numbers or allow the human counterpart to intervene directly, using their own words to work on approval or maintenance activities.
“This is the central entry point to SAP on steroids,” explains Markus Kopf, VP and head of Mobile Experience and Engineering at SAP, illustrating the combination of native mobile experience and generative AI for Apple or Android-based systems.
Kopf uses his smartphone like a streaming remote control that listens to him. He asks about sales orders with an open delivery status, for example. What happens next seems to take place in the SAP Mobile Start app – that’s just the surface though. In the background, SAP Business AI recognizes the application from which the information must come and how it must be processed.
“And instantly, the AI agent delivers the results. A chat interface shows me the sales orders I have asked for. It also offers me to look into the details,” Kopf adds. According to him, this will radically change the way people work with SAP in many areas. Scenarios range from sales applications to human resources and supply chain processes. “Easy-to-use mobile devices will become the most popular point of interaction with a business system,” Kopf says. Even if the data sets and possibilities that make SAP so versatile and powerful might not suddenly become completely simple, the complexity behind will become more and more invisible to end users.
Since its launch a few years ago, SAP Mobile Start has been designed as a doorway to SAP’s range of business solutions. The mission: to provide centralized access to native mobile apps, cloud applications, and tools for decision-making and getting insights. The app allows a growing number of end users to complete tasks wherever their employees happen to be. SAP attached great importance to an attractive experience. Consistently designed user interfaces utilize the possibilities of each respective device platform.
The introduction of the new version of SAP Mobile Start with Joule goes one step further – from operating SAP “with your fingertips” to a natural conversation that should be possible completely hands-free in the near future.
To help people use the common voice assistants on their devices, SAP’s mobile developers have built so-called app intents that call specific SAP functions through voice commands. Apple iPhone users, for example, can activate SAP’s AI copilot by saying, “Hey Siri, ask SAP how many vacation days I have.”
The prospect of business apps that can be used without clicks and keystrokes not only changes how people process certain tasks, but it will also make many jobs a lot safer. One prominent scenario will be working on machines at lofty heights with work clothing that makes it almost impossible to use equipment by hand.
SAP has massively expanded the capabilities of its AI copilot for more than 100 use cases. SAP CEO Christian Klein recently called Joule the “champion” of all AI business agents. In fact, practically no other company can offer its customers access to a comparable wealth of data and business process knowledge.
Benefiting from this, SAP mobile apps can be particularly quick and easy to adopt, especially for high-volume use cases. For more individual requirements, the SAP Build development and automation toolkit, which also works with SAP Business AI, can enable building further applications.
“Consider SAP Mobile Start as the future beginning and center for a fully AI-enabled mobile app suite,” Kopf says. “It’s exciting to see our vision becoming a reality now. The power of business AI and the latest mobile technology transform the way people engage with our applications, making it more natural and just better for all of us.”
The SAP Mobile Start app is available on:
- The App Store for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro
- Google Play for mobile devices running Android
Stephan Kamps is a corporate journalist and mobile product expert at SAP.