Generative AI for planning and analytics

Why does generative AI matter for planning and analytics?

Business users can access insights on demand, generate more accurate plans, and make faster, fact-based decisions to drive planning and analytics success.

placeholder

Smart features for planning and analytics

Generative AI is already helping organizations to unlock the full potential of their data and derive greater value from planning and analytics. Tangible benefits can be achieved across distinct planning and analytics roles and responsibilities:

  • Information consumers and business analysts can access meaningful auto-generated visualizations and self-serve rich insights using natural language

  • Planners can model a wide range of future scenarios and generate more accurate forecasts and plans

  • Content developers can speed the development of rich, personalized content at scale to serve customers better

  • Data professionals can enhance and augment data modeling during the preparation process.

Transforming planning and analytics

SAP is helping to transform planning and analytics with the power of generative AI.

Our statement of direction for generative AI

Our aim is to integrate generative AI into the major workflows of SAP Analytics Cloud by the end of 2025. By transforming these workflows, we will unlock new possibilities and drive innovation for the distinct planning and analytics roles and responsibilities common to organizations globally.


Building on business context and quality data With generative AI in SAP Analytics Cloud, we will build on business context and quality data from SAP and non-SAP applications to extend existing functionalities, automate workflows, and accelerate the delivery of business value.

A one-click-away experience From modelling and analysis to planning and simulation, we strive to make generative AI a one-click-away experience within SAP Analytics Cloud. We will simplify and accelerate complex tasks into efficient and more automated workflows for standalone use cases as well as embedded analytics and planning in SAP applications.

placeholder
We envision integrating generative AI into every major workflow of SAP Analytics Cloud.
Matthias Kraemer
Senior Vice President, Head of SAP HANA Database and Analytics – Planning and Analytics, SAP

Meet Joule, the AI copilot that truly understands your business

Joule, SAP’s natural-language, generative AI copilot, is a conversational AI assistant that understands industry- and business-specific language.

placeholder

Get work done faster

SAP Analytics Cloud with Joule will let planning and analytics users get work done faster and drive better business outcomes in a secure, compliant way. Joule works by quickly sorting through and contextualizing data to surface smarter insights. Users simply ask Joule questions or frame a problem in plain language. In response, Joule delivers intelligent answers drawn from a wealth of business data, while retaining context.

Joule will assist SAP Analytics Cloud users with key activities:

  • Answer analytical questions faster

  • Enrich data models with advanced calculations

  • Discover data and design data visualizations

  • Auto-generate custom scripts to extend dashboards

  • Simulate and analyze driver impacts

  • Create and develop business plans

  • Receive best practices and how-to guidelines in context

As we delve into the realm of Generative AI applied to data and analytics, Freudenberg is thrilled to partner with SAP in paving the way for groundbreaking advancements in SAP Analytics Cloud for transforming data analysis and decision-making at Freudenberg.
Andreas Hass, Head of Corporate Data Platform, Freudenberg & Co
placeholder

Lower the barrier to work with analytics using natural language

The "just ask" feature of SAP Analytics Cloud was the first delivery on the roadmap for generative AI in SAP Analytics Cloud. It became generally available in Q1 2024.

The just ask feature: 

  • Applies generative AI to natural language queries for search-driven analytics

  • Enhances answer accuracy and consistency, surpassing existing search-driven solutions

  • Enables users to quickly access trusted insights in their preferred language regardless of expertise

  • Helps to increase data literacy and analytics

We are excited to collaborate with SAP on our journey to transform data and analytics at Shell, with a vision of using advanced digital technologies, particularly AI and machine learning, to build a future that aims to unlock the true potential from data and help our businesses get actionable insights.
Madhur Raj, IT Product Line Manager – Finance, Tax & Functions, Shell

SAP’s commitment to AI ethics and governance

SAP is committed to the ethical and responsible use of AI, ensuring data protection, privacy, security, and the highest quality standards in AI-assisted workflows.

placeholder

The SAP AI Ethics Handbook guides SAP employees in implementing the SAP AI Ethics Policy during all stages of the AI development lifecycle at SAP. To transform planning and analytics without compromising this commitment to AI ethics and governance is a top priority in our strategy to integrate generative AI in SAP Analytics Cloud.