Joule is an artificial intelligence assistant that will be seamlessly integrated across SAP’s cloud portfolio. Its primary role is to fundamentally transform business processes by providing “proactive and contextual insights from SAP’s extensive solutions as well as third-party sources.” In other words, Joule has access to all relevant enterprise data and can analyze it to extract valuable insights, even if they were not explicitly sought. The overall goal is to enable users to complete tasks faster and more efficiently, while doing so in a secure and compliant manner, according to the announcement.
Several business areas will benefit from Joule, including human resources, finance, supply chain management, purchasing management and customer experience. In addition, the AI assistant will be integrated with SAP’s Business Technology Platform. Similar to Microsoft’s Copilot or the AI integrations in Google services, the focus is on the ability to search for information and assistance in natural language and also receive corresponding answers in natural language.
SAP is making investments in artificial intelligence (AI) startups. However, Joule has a broader mission, which is to provide new and significant insights. One example is identifying “underperforming regions” or supply chain issues through data analytics. In HR, Joule is designed to help avoid “biased job ads,” which is noteworthy because AI is typically known for reinforcing stereotypes rather than preventing them due to biases in training data. Details on Joule’s development and structure are limited so far.
From the end of this year, the first companies will be able to use Joule. SAP has already announced that further areas of use will be announced in the near future. SAP is also investing in AI companies such as Aleph Alpha, which is also headquartered in Heidelberg, as well as Anthropics and Cohere. The latter has Google, among others, as an investor. SAP has partnerships in AI with companies such as Google Cloud, Microsoft and IBM. In addition, SAP is funding Sapphire Ventures LLC, which is investing more than $1 billion in AI startups. Details on the contracts and their scope are available from SAP.
