In the third install­ment of its 2024 Rise into the Future web­cast series, SAP focused on help­ing atten­dees pre­pare their busi­ness­es to ful­ly embrace the pow­er and promise of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI).

The dis­cus­sion — between Paul Saun­ders, Head of Prod­uct Strat­e­gy for SAP Cloud ERP at SAP; Mar­tin Wezows­ki, SAP Chief Futur­ist; Anub­huti Shah, Head of Cloud ERP AI & SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy (BTP) Prod­uct Mar­ket­ing at SAP; and Ritu Jyoti, Group VP of AI and Automa­tion at IDC — pro­vid­ed atten­dees with prac­ti­cal steps to facil­i­tate effec­tive and effi­cient AI adoption. 

Giv­en AI’s grow­ing impor­tance in the SAP ecosys­tem, this web­cast series res­onat­ed with atten­dees who also recent­ly heard, at this year’s SAP Sap­phire & ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence in Orlan­do, about incom­ing AI inno­va­tions from SAP. With the soft­ware giant unveil­ing a litany of part­ner­ships, inno­va­tions, and announcements all focused on facil­i­tat­ing AI adop­tion and expand­ing the foot­print of Joule, SAP’s gen­er­a­tive AI copi­lot, to cov­er more of the SAP suite of solu­tions, it’s clear that SAP is accel­er­at­ing toward a com­pre­hen­sive vision of busi­ness AI. 

Speak­ing about grow­ing enthu­si­asm for AI, Wezowk­si not­ed dur­ing the web­cast that the tech­nol­o­gy is not a phase, describ­ing it as a ​“gen­er­al pur­pose tech­nol­o­gy” akin to elec­tric­i­ty. Here are some key high­lights from SAP’s ​“Rise into the Future: Har­ness the Full Poten­tial of Busi­ness AI” webcast.

Keys Steps to Devel­op­ing an AI Strategy

The pan­elists offered point­ers on how SAP users can devel­op effec­tive AI strate­gies and enable orga­ni­za­tion­al adop­tion. One of the first steps any orga­ni­za­tion hop­ing to use AI appli­ca­tions must take is to migrate ERP oper­a­tions to the cloud and focus on data cleaning. 

Shah not­ed that high-qual­i­ty data is the ​“foun­da­tion” of effec­tive AI. Data acces­si­bil­i­ty is equal­ly impor­tant in empow­er­ing AI solu­tions, like Joule, which effec­tive­ly rely on an enterprise’s data pool to function. 

Accord­ing to Shah, the ​“opti­mal sce­nario” atten­dees should strive for is enabling AI appli­ca­tions and algo­rithms with real-time orga­ni­za­tion­al data in the cloud. After orga­ni­za­tions embrace the cloud and opti­mize data, they can focus on align­ing their AI strat­e­gy with cor­po­rate strat­e­gy and real­ize tan­gi­ble busi­ness benefits.

“AI is going to impact every part of the busi­ness,” Jyoti said. Draw­ing on insights from IDC research, Jyoti encour­aged atten­dees to con­sid­er how AI can improve cor­po­rate strate­gies and busi­ness objec­tives by reduc­ing man­u­al tasks and expand­ing com­pa­nies’ abil­i­ty to ana­lyze busi­ness data. In the end, AI solu­tions can cre­ate sig­nif­i­cant stake­hold­er val­ue by address­ing busi­ness prob­lems faced by end users, she said.

Jyoti also under­lined the impor­tance of embrac­ing AI respon­si­bil­i­ty and focus­ing on account­abil­i­ty. Giv­en AI inno­va­tion’s flu­id and ever-advanc­ing state, enter­pris­es must install effec­tive guardrails and ensure over­sight of AI-aug­ment­ed process­es wher­ev­er they are imple­ment­ed. In the event of AI hal­lu­ci­na­tions, incor­rect or miss­ing data, or oth­er com­mon issues involv­ing AI, orga­ni­za­tions must retain enough vis­i­bil­i­ty of these process­es to take cor­rec­tive actions in a time­ly and agile fashion. 

Set the Ground­work for Future AI Innovation 

In the web­cast, pan­elists also dis­cussed how com­pa­nies can pre­pare their orga­ni­za­tions and IT land­scapes for future AI capabilities. 

Jyoti not­ed that invest­ing in areas of the busi­ness that AI can most demon­stra­bly improve is a clear, effec­tive place to start. How­ev­er, stake­hold­ers always look for ​“tan­gi­ble ROI” and need ​“jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to be done before invest­ing,” she said. Based on respons­es to IDC research, sig­nif­i­cant areas to con­sid­er for AI invest­ment include soft­ware devel­op­ment and design, sup­ply chain, finance, and cus­tomer engagement. 

Wezows­ki stressed that atten­dees should con­sid­er how AI can impact — and improve — oper­a­tional func­tions in the future. ​“There’s a whole world of oppor­tu­ni­ties,” he said. ​“New gen­er­a­tions will use this tech­nol­o­gy differently.” 

To that end, Wezows­ki encour­aged enter­pris­es to adopt flex­i­ble strate­gies and strate­gic fore­sight in incor­po­rat­ing AI. He also sug­gest­ed that com­pa­nies return to basics before mov­ing for­ward, review­ing cor­po­rate cul­ture and stan­dard busi­ness process­es to iden­ti­fy poten­tial areas for improve­ment. Wezows­ki encour­aged orga­ni­za­tions to look at how indi­vid­ual employ­ees will even­tu­al­ly use AI. Future AI inno­va­tion will make ​“sys­tems hyper-per­son­al,” he said, as AI-enabled solu­tions are con­tin­u­ous­ly improv­ing by observ­ing user pat­terns and habits, he said. Equipped with these insights, solu­tions can pos­i­tive­ly impact employ­ee oper­a­tions by sug­gest­ing effi­cient ways to tack­le dai­ly tasks.

The web­cast also fea­tured insights gained from IDC’s research on AI and a Joule demo show­ing how the copi­lot can improve finan­cial operations.

Watch the full web­cast on demand here.