In 2024, SAP Business AI transformed more concepts into real-world impact than ever before. We kept our promise and released more than 130 high-value generative AI capabilities that came ready to use out-of-the-box across our cloud applications.
It is precisely these high-value use cases that helped SAP customers get work done faster and smarter. They helped customers win esports tournaments through AI-powered strategic insights, transformed timesheet tracking so employees could focus on high-value tasks rather than administrative duties, streamlined HR operations to increase efficiency for global football clubs, and so much more.
Looking again to our customers, we infused our generative AI copilot Joule into over 80 percent of the most-used tasks across the SAP portfolio. This way, customers can use natural language to get the most important things done. As an example, with Joule’s 1,300 new skills, customers can open a mobile phone chat to get the latest numbers or finalize an approval. We also partnered with more top-tier generative AI models this year, including AWS, Meta, NVIDIA, Mistral, and others, in order to provide flexibility to customers when building AI-powered extensions and use cases with the generative AI hub in SAP AI Core.
Today, we are helping more customers across a range of industries and applications. Before diving into the complete updates below, here are some of the highlights from Q4 2024:
- Joule is well into its second year, and the updates didn’t slow down in Q4 2024. It is now integrated with 13 SAP applications out-of-the-box, and is also available via SAP Mobile Start, so users can use natural language to interact with SAP applications on the go. On iPhone and iPad, Joule is only a “Hey, Siri” away, as Siri can now open and send questions to Joule. Significant innovations entering the SAP Early Adopter Care program for Joule include SAP Consultant Capability for newfound productivity gains and Joule’s new analytical capabilities to streamline insights across SAP applications. Beyond SAP, Joule is now integrated with Microsoft 365 Copilot for seamless two-way access. Dive into further updates below.
- Following a successful SAP Early Adopter Care program in 2024, Joule is generally available in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. This integration offers a more intuitive way for users to interact with SAP solutions. Instead of manually searching for information or navigating multiple interfaces, users can simply ask Joule for what they need — whether that’s insights on business data or guidance on performing specific tasks. Information searches are up to 95 percent* faster, and navigation and transactional tasks are executed up to 90 percent* faster. SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition also received new releases, such as AI-assisted master data governance, AI-assisted sales order fulfillment monitoring, AI-assisted conversational planning, and more. Explore all releases below.
- In SAP SuccessFactors, tasks across the entire solution are improved with AI, including writing, translating, and analyzing text for effortless communication. New 360 reports provide tailored growth recommendations and performance metrics for employees. Hiring is also streamlined with AI-powered assignment creation and job recommendations based on uploaded resumes. Dive into all the updates below.
- SAP Business AI in IT and Platform offers a myriad of process improvements that help make work easier, from email subject line generators to a free tier on SAP BTP that includes Document Information Extraction service for AI document processing in over 40 languages. SAP’s generative AI hub now supports grounding capabilities for enhanced data retrieval and decision-making, plus more Amazon foundation models are available. Joule has been embedded into SAP Build Work Zone, SAP Signavio, and SAP Build Code for natural language searches, KPI recommendations, and up to 30 percent* faster application development. Dive into all the updates below.
- SAP Business AI in Sales, Services, Marketing, and Commerce boosts productivity and improves workflow. Joule in SAP Sales Cloud Version 2 means intelligent recommendations and faster search results. Sales teams can now navigate more efficiently and access data up to 50 percent* faster. AI-assisted backend entity extraction for SAP Enterprise Service Management automatically transforms unstructured text into structured data. Dive into all the updates below.
This is only the beginning: 2025 promises more use cases across our entire range of solutions. Watch for forthcoming SAP Business AI releases, including SAP Knowledge Graph, Joule studio, and SAP Foundation Model, which all promise a strong ROI for businesses along with improvements to employees’ daily work while ensuring relevance, reliability, and responsibility.
Joule
Joule in SAP Mobile Start
General Availability
Joule is now integrated into the SAP Mobile Start app, enabling users with smartphones or tablets to interact with SAP applications in natural language. Since its launch a few years ago, SAP Mobile Start has been designed to provide centralized access to native mobile apps, cloud applications, and tools for decision-making and getting insights.
A simple chat with Joule 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 integration radically changes how people work with SAP in many areas, from sales applications to human resources and supply chain processes.
On iPhone and iPad, customers can use Siri to open and send questions to Joule. For example, customers can say, “Hey Siri, ask Joule in SAP Mobile Start.” Siri will respond, and they can ask their question, which is then directly transferred to Joule in SAP Mobile Start.
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
Start with the product documentation.
SAP Consulting Capability
SAP Early Adopter Care
Announced at SAP Sapphire in 2024, SAP Consulting Capability will forever change how consultants work. Now available in its early adopter phase, this upcoming product makes consultants more efficient on SAP projects with AI assistance grounded in the most up-to-date and comprehensive knowledge base of SAP-focused content.
Consultants can save up to one-and-a-half hours daily* typically spent finding answers. This product provides consultants with fast, concise, and specific insights distilled from exclusive SAP content. It also empowers them to get more done by spending 40 percent less time* interpreting ABAP code, helping them to understand code purpose, logic, and structure quickly. Finally, it elevates every consultant’s impact by expanding their effective knowledge and developing talent faster with expert guidance and instruction that speeds up learning and skill acquisition.
Get more information and register for product updates here.
Joule and Microsoft 365 Copilot Integration
Private preview
SAP and Microsoft are redefining workplace productivity by integrating Joule and Microsoft 365 Copilot. First introduced at SAP Sapphire in 2024 and presented at Microsoft Ignite at the end of last year, this integration provides a seamless user experience. Employees can access either Joule or Microsoft 365 Copilot to complete tasks and retrieve data across both SAP and Microsoft environments.
This means that users in Microsoft 365 can rely on Copilot to pull SAP tasks and data through Joule, while those in SAP applications can leverage Joule to access Microsoft 365 information and workflows. This two-way integration allows employees to work in the environment most effective for the task at hand, helping to ensure they have everything they need to get their work done efficiently.
For example, a user can book a flight using SAP Concur and Joule can block their calendar in Microsoft Outlook. Or consider a product manager working on a new product launch with a cross-functional team: they have regular meetings on Microsoft Teams and collaborate with Microsoft 365. With Joule’s integration, they can connect to the team’s individual skill profiles stored in SAP SuccessFactors software and core business information in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. The new integration enables product managers to coordinate business activities with the team simply by using a few queries.
Get started here.
Joule, Analytical Insights
SAP Early Adopter Care
In addition to its existing navigational, conversational, and transactional capabilities, Joule makes data insights more accessible for business users. They can simply ask Joule for analytical insights from their SAP business applications and get instant, easy-to-digest answers tailored to the context, regardless of their data and analytics skills. Analytical insights in Joule empower all line-of-business users to make more informed decisions faster and act confidently for better business outcomes.
Get started here and find out more about the SAP Early Adopter Care program.
SAP Business AI in ERP and Finance
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, Joule
General availability
After a successful early adopter program conducted in 2024 with several customers and partners, this general availability marks a significant step in transforming how businesses operate by simplifying everyday tasks and making interactions more efficient and intelligent.
The integration offers a more intuitive way for users to interact with SAP solutions. Instead of manually searching for information or navigating multiple interfaces, users can simply ask Joule for what they need, whether it’s insights into business data or guidance on performing specific tasks.
Joule offers a multifaceted user experience. It enables quick navigation to applications for seamless task transitions, provides instant insights into critical business data like purchase orders and outbound deliveries, and guides users to relevant enablement content when assistance is needed, thus streamlining task completion.
A recent study showed that companies using AI-powered tools like Joule experienced a 30 percent reduction in time spent on administrative tasks. This time savings allows employees to focus on more strategic activities that drive value.
Get started here.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-Assisted Cloud Business Add-In Generation
Beta release
Extensibility specialists can leverage this new application within SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition to improve implementation time and customization efficiency with reduced SAP and ABAP knowledge dependency.
The app identifies appropriate business add-ins and provides implementation-ready sample code in natural language for the specified business objective. Users can expect to reduce the cost of code revisions by up to five percent* and immediate answers to questions related to cloud business add-ins.
Get started here.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, Joule: Product Enhancements
General availability
After its release in Q3 2024, Joule in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition was enhanced with several capabilities last quarter. Suppliers or customers who need to access master data can ask Joule to display business partner details while staying in the application. Project system users can use Joule to streamline data collection and consolidation in project systems and easily access master data, date, and status information of selected project system objects without opening multiple applications.
With Joule integrated into SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, users can perform informational searches up to 95 percent faster and execute navigational and transactional tasks 90 percent faster.
Get started here.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, AI-Assisted Master Data Governance
General availability
Master data specialists can now use natural language to create and update master data change requests and then generate a summary of all updates to master data in a change request. The feature saves a significant amount of time when requesting changes to master data and reviewing requested changes, lowering the risk of missing critical changes and thereby improving the data quality of master data. Users can expect to reduce their efforts by up to 50 percent* when requesting the change of a single attribute, by up to 80 percent* when reviewing and understanding change requests, and by up to 50 percent* when processing change requests.
Get started here.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, AI-Assisted Sales Order Fulfillment Monitoring
General availability
Sales departments can now benefit from AI to quickly monitor and resolve order fulfillment issues. Sales orders are summarized in natural language on the header and item level, fulfillment issues are identified and resolved, sales orders can be updated, and document flows are transparent.
Sales representatives can enhance order accuracy and customer satisfaction and expect a 30 percent* reduction in time tracking for stuck sales orders and a 10 percent* reduction in churn related to slow fulfillment caused by stuck sales orders.
Get started here.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, Transportation Management, AI-Assisted Goods Receipt Processing
General availability
Delivery controllers can automate the processing of goods receipts and delivery notes, avoiding data entry errors and processing many types of document layouts without needing to do any training. The feature detects anomalies that can slow the validation of freight orders and automatically retrieves relevant information from paper-based freight documents and posts it to the system.
Automating the checking of delivery notes and reducing manual checks at the gate significantly reduces the time spent on manual checks and truck waiting times and improves operational efficiency. Delivery controllers can expect to reduce by 50 percent* the cost of inbound delivery notes processing and by 40 percent* the cost of idle time for trucks in the yard.
Get started here.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, Transportation Management, AI-Assisted Conversational Planning
General availability
Planners can interact with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, transportation management, using natural language to create comprehensive transportation plans. The new feature supports complex action chains, displays planning needs against available capacities, and simplifies complex transportation decisions. Transportation planners can expect an improvement of 10 percent* in their productivity.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, AI-Assisted Behavioral Insights for Contract Accounting
General availability
Collections specialists can use this new feature to predict payment risks and identify high-risk accounts, thus improving collection strategies and reducing outstanding debts. It provides an expanded overview of events, enabling the organization to perform an efficient and reliable analysis of the customer to help make informed decisions and take appropriate action. Customers can expect a reduction of up to 3.5 percent* in days sales outstanding (DSO), a five percent* reduction in uncollectible AR write-offs, and a one percent* reduction in customer billing, credit, and collections costs.
Learn more about these latest product innovations in this video:
SAP Business AI in Human Resources
SAP SuccessFactors Solutions, AI-Assisted Writing – Text Analyzer and Content Translation
General availability
People managers and employees will save time on writing tasks, from employee feedback to profile updates. The new text analyzer functionality within the existing AI-assisted writing feature helps employees create more carefully worded text for their people profiles, goals, comments, and more. It performs a safety scan on each text box, prompt entry, or generative AI output to detect bias and suggest replacement text for any language flagged as potentially biased, discriminatory, or harmful.
Get started here.
A new translation feature is also available. This feature translates text within SAP SuccessFactors to help preserve key messages and tone across languages.
With these two features, managers can expect to reduce their time spent writing employee feedback by up to 65 percent*.
Get started here.
SAP SuccessFactors Performance and Goals, AI-Assisted Insights into Detailed 360 Report
General availability
The 360 report offers employees and managers detailed insights into employee performance, including summaries, key points, and growth recommendations organized by skills or competencies. It provides personalized analysis from diverse feedback sources, enabling employees to identify strengths and areas for improvement and helping managers assess team capabilities effectively.
With this feature, companies can expect up to a 20 percent* boost in employee performance and an increase of up to 10 percent* in employee retention.
SAP SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace, AI-Assisted Skill Inference for Assignment Creation
General availability
Assignment owners and co-owners can now create or edit assignments efficiently. This new feature enhances the quality of assignment descriptions, boosts application inflow, and highlights meaningful opportunities across the organization. Users can expect to reduce creation time by up to 90 percent*, improve skill matching by up to 30 percent*, reduce unconscious bias by up to 25 percent*, achieve up to a 90 percent* reduction in creation time, and improve skill matching by up to 30 percent*.
Get started here.
SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development, AI-Assisted Career Insights
General availability
With the AI-assisted career insights feature, employees can better develop skills for target roles through tailored guidance, relevant course recommendations, mentorship connections, and structured development goals. Additionally, it facilitates efficient global communication by quickly translating content, reducing reliance on costly translation agencies. Companies can expect to increase their employee engagement by up to 25 percent* and reduce their time to upskill by up to 30 percent*.
Get started here.
SAP SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace, AI-Assisted Assignment Creation
General availability
Recruiters can streamline hiring processes by generating tailored requirements, improving assignment quality, and efficiently matching internal talent to the company’s needs. The feature saves time on manual tasks, enhances internal postings, and allows them to focus on recruiting. They can experience up to a 90 percent* reduction in time and cost for job description creation and a 30 percent* improvement in skill matching.
Get started here.
SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting, AI-Assisted Job Skills on Career Sites
General availability
Candidates can now upload resumes, receive job recommendations, and view skill matches between their resume and job requirements, improving transparency and clarity. This increases the chances of finding roles that truly match the candidate’s qualifications, ensures transparency and explainability regarding how candidate skills align with job requirements, and reduces manual searching time. This results, for example, in improving hire quality by up to 30 percent and reducing biased hiring by up to 30 percent.
SAP SuccessFactors solutions, AI-Assisted Microsoft Teams App Chat
General availability
Users can interact with the SAP SuccessFactors app in Microsoft Teams using natural language to initiate HR transactions or view personal data. The feature focuses on mapping user inputs to available quick actions using AI.
The system always attempts to match a user’s request with a specific HR transaction. This means the response will either successfully match a transaction or return no match without open-ended responses. The system is designed to provide clear, structured results based on available quick actions rather than engaging in free-form conversation. It speeds up access to frequently used transactions and improves app navigation, reducing time and cost for finding the correct transaction by 90 percent* and boosting productivity by 30 percent*.
Get started here.
We have also introduced more than 15 new capabilities to Joule. For example, new hires, hiring managers, and HR colleagues can now navigate onboarding tasks in a more engaging way, streamlining the onboarding process and boosting productivity.
Learn more about these latest product innovations here:
SAP Business AI in IT and Platform
Document Information Extraction, Premium Edition: Product Enhancements
General availability
Available on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), the Document Information Extraction service helps businesses automate and scale their document processing use case end-to-end in more than 40 languages with easy extensions for any document.
At the end of 2024, we also announced that the free tier option now includes the generative AI capabilities available in Document Information Extraction, premium edition, such as automatic extraction of business-relevant entities from documents without the need for extensive model training, instant learning based on user corrections, and embedded document classification. The free tier service for Document Information Extraction, premium edition, allows to process 50 document pages for free every month, making it easier for everyone to try out the service and get started at no extra charge. For our most demanding customers that process hundreds of thousands of documents, we have made the service 30 percent less expensive to provide even more value.
Learn more about the new pricing and start with the product documentation here.
Generative AI Hub: Product Enhancements
General availability
Developers can leverage the generative AI hub in SAP AI Core and SAP AI Launchpad to access market-leading large language models (LLMs) in a governed environment, run AI models securely and cost-effectively, and maximize value creation from generative AI use cases for SAP applications.
In the last quarter, we introduced the grounding capability in the orchestration module of generative AI hub. It provides specialized data retrieval through vector databases, grounding the retrieval process using external and context-relevant data. Grounding combines generative AI capabilities with the capacity to use real-time, precise data to improve decision-making and business operations for specific AI-driven solutions. This data supplements the natural language processing capabilities of pre-trained models trained on general material. The Pipeline API is proxied through the SAP AI Core generative AI hub and incorporates vector stores, such as the managed SAP HANA database.
Get started here.
We also unveiled the immediate availability of Amazon’s new foundation models – Amazon Nova Micro, Amazon Nova Lite, and Amazon Nova Pro – through SAP’s generative AI hub. These are in addition to existing access to Anthropic Claude and Amazon Titan models from Amazon Bedrock.
Finally, we released the SAP Cloud SDK for AI. This SDK enables developers to seamlessly integrate AI capabilities, such as chat completion, into their Java-based business applications using SAP’s generative AI hub. Developers can rely on powerful features, such as templating, grounding, data masking, and content filtering, to build intelligent applications. The SDK simplifies the setup and interaction with SAP AI Core, allowing customers to focus on delivering value through AI integration.
Get started here.
SAP Build Work Zone, Joule
General availability
Business users can now experience unique value by effortlessly connecting data from multiple backend systems into a single interface because Joule is now integrated into SAP Build Work Zone, a low-code tool for creating engaging and personalized business sites. By providing answers and insights from any supported system, Joule eliminates the need to switch between tools and speeds up the execution of navigational and transactional tasks by up to 90 percent*. This empowers SAP Build Work Zone users to stay informed with all relevant information and applications in one place.
Get started here.
SAP Build Code: Explore a Project’s Code
General availability
SAP Build Code, a generative AI-powered code development solution, enables developers to build applications up to 30 percent* faster and potentially decrease development costs by the same margin. With Joule embedded, it offers a streamlined environment optimized for Java and JavaScript, supporting coding, testing, integrations, and application lifecycle management. Since last quarter, developers have used natural language queries to find specific code within their projects using Joule, speeding up application development even more.
Get started here.
SAP Signavio Process Collaboration Hub, Joule
SAP Early Adopter Care
Joule is now available in SAP Signavio as part of an SAP Early Adopter Care program, enhancing user experience with intuitive natural language search, best practice KPI recommendations, and detailed help pages for better product understanding. It streamlines access to crucial metrics, enabling faster data-driven decisions and process improvements.
Achieve up to 95 percent* faster informational searches and 90 percent* quicker task execution.
Joule Studio in SAP Build
Beta release
We are making Joule even more flexible and valuable with Joule studio in SAP Build. Developers can extend Joule’s benefits to their organization-specific workflows by creating and deploying custom Joule skills with drag-and-drop tools and integrating Joule with third-party software. Developers can expect to increase business user productivity by up to 20 percent*.
Stay tuned for the general availability planned for Q1 2025.
SAP Business AI in Sales, Services, Marketing, and Commerce
SAP Enterprise Service Management, AI-Assisted Backend Entity Extraction
General availability
Shared service agents’ manual efforts can now be reduced by enabling faster case processing and more efficient entity creation with AI-assisted backend entity extraction in SAP Enterprise Service Management. This new feature automatically extracts relevant IDs — for example, invoice ID, contract account — from documents such as emails, converting unstructured text into structured data for SAP solutions such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Businesses can achieve an up to 50 percent* increase in shared service staff productivity and a reduction in repeat cases of up to 30 percent*.
Get started here.
SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement, AI-Assisted Subject Line Generator
General availability
With generative AI capabilities embarked into SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement, marketers can create compelling email campaigns using text prompts to generate subject-line ideas based on their content. They can improve subject lines with personalized wording, emojis, and seasonal relevance, enabling efficient A/B testing for data-driven decisions. This feature reduces campaign creation costs by 10 percent* and boosts return on marketing investments by up to 20 percent*.
Get started here.
SAP CX AI Toolkit: Product Enhancements
General availability
Sales representatives can leverage the intelligent Q&A feature in SAP CX AI Toolkit to use SAP Service Cloud Version 2 cases as a data source to generate AI answers to their questions. With intelligent Q&A in SAP CX AI Toolkit, sales representatives can improve their productivity by five percent*, increase their win rate by one percent*, and first-call resolution rate by eight percent*.
Additional released enhancements were tailored explicitly for sales, service, and commerce roles. SAP CX AI Toolkit now supports SAP Commerce Cloud and SAP Customer Data Platform data sources in AI tools builder, the generation of new attributes and the discovery of new values for existing attributes for a product in multiple languages, generating and translating descriptions for products in multiple languages, and it is now available as an embedded panel within SAP Sales and Service Cloud Version 2.
Get started here with the SAP CX AI Toolkit features and here to view the complete list of the latest innovations.
SAP Sales Cloud Version 2, Joule
SAP Early Adopter Care
Sales teams can become more productive using Joule in SAP Sales Cloud Version 2. It boosts productivity by providing intelligent recommendations and faster, context-specific search results through its generative AI capabilities. Sales users can perform searches up to 50 percent* faster and navigate the application up to 30 percent* more efficiently, enabling quicker access to relevant customer and transactional data. This streamlines sales processes, improving both internal productivity and customer interactions.
Get started here and register for the SAP Early Adopter Care program.
SAP Business AI in Industries
SAP Market Communication for Utilities, AI-Assisted CONTRL-Message Explanation
General availability
This new feature helps customer agents simplify error handling by providing natural language explanations for EDIFACT-encoded error messages in the German energy market. They can directly address error messages when working with market partners, significantly reducing processing time and the reliance on highly skilled experts for error analysis. As a result, businesses benefit from an up to 50 percent* reduction in operational costs for error resolution and up to a 60 percent* improvement in processing time for analyzing error cases.
Get started here.
SAP Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences, AI-Assisted Custom Release Checks
General availability
Qualified persons overseeing the batch release process can significantly improve efficiency with AI-powered analysis of documents attached to custom release checks in the pharmaceutical industry. This feature reduces the manual effort required by proposing AI-generated results directly in the UI, eliminating the need for qualified persons to search through extensive documents. This allows them to focus on reviewing recommendations and ensuring compliance. The feature enhances productivity of qualified persons by up to 60 percent*, increasing batch release processes’ speed and accuracy to ultimately improve compliance, quality, and the overall user experience.
Get started here.
SAP Business AI in Procurement
Concur Travel, AI-Assisted Flight Recommendations
General availability
Business travelers using Concur Travel can now benefit from the new “Best Flights for You” feature, which displays up to three AI-suggested, policy-compliant flight options based on factors like loyalty cards and available inventory. This curated experience saves users time by presenting the most likely flight choices, reducing the need to sift through all available options while allowing access to the complete list if needed. By optimizing policy compliance and streamlining the booking process, the feature enhances the overall user experience and improves efficiency for business travelers.
Get started here.
Concur Expense, Joule
SAP Early Adopter Care
Business travelers can use Joule within Concur Expense to simplify and streamline spend management, ensuring expense reports are ready for submission with minimal effort. This integration reduces policy alerts and the likelihood of returned reports, significantly decreasing time spent on reviews and approvals. They can expect up to 95 percent* faster informational searches and 90 percent* quicker task execution, enhancing employee satisfaction, improving compliance, and delivering substantial time and cost savings across the organization.
Get started here.
Philipp Herzig is chief AI officer at SAP.
*Disclaimer: Values mentioned in this blog post are estimates based on average industry benchmark numbers from an SAP analysis. Customers interested in a specific business case calculation can consult their SAP account team.
