SAP Joule: The Pros and Cons of the AI Assistant

Since SAP Joule gives users access to all data stored in almost all SAP systems, the AI assistant can be used in any area of the company, for example:

• The HR department can have SAP Joule create job advertisements and publish them directly on the desired platform.
• In marketing , SAP Joule is used, among other things, to analyse customer behaviour in real time and to personalize landing pages in such a way that the shopping experience is improved.
• Sales benefits from the ability to use the AI assistant to call up the status of an order in the ERP system or the stock level and thus reliably specify delivery dates.
• In purchasing , employees can use the AI assistant to easily find out which supplier has the best prices and trigger a corresponding order directly via chat.
• In production , SAP Joule supports the optimization of the supply chain. The AI assistant provides real-time transparency, predicts demand and improves logistics planning. SAP Joule can also be used to monitor and optimize production processes. The AI assistant also increases production efficiency and reduces downtime.
• Customer service employees can use SAP Joule to easily search a knowledge database and thus quickly help their customers seeking assistance - for example, by recommending suitable spare parts.
• In the IT environment, developers can output code via SAP Joule, for example for documentation purposes, or easily create simple websites with a login screen (no-code or low-code).
• In the finance department, SAP Joule can be used for fraud detection, risk management and the creation of financial forecasts.

SAP plans to have around 100 predefined use cases for the use of SAP Joule directly in various SAP solutions by the end of 2024. SAP solutions solutions, such as SAP Sales CloudSAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Service Cloud, SAP Customer Data Platform, SAP Advanced Financial Closing, SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite, SAP Fieldglass and CX AI Toolkit.

SAP Joule is already integrated into almost all SAP cloud solutions. The input field opens via a diamond icon, which is displayed in the top right-hand corner of all user interfaces, regardless of the system. This means that using SAP Joule is very low-threshold and intuitive. Secondly, it is no longer necessary to switch back and forth between different SAP solutions. All you need to do is enter a prompt. Once you start working with SAP Joule, you will soon be convinced. This is because the AI assistant increases the productivity of all users by streamlining workflows and automating repetitive tasks. This means that with SAP Joule, users have an assistant at their fingertips that not only has direct access to almost all relevant company data, but also acts as an advisor and sparring partner for strategic, conceptual and operational processes - in English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

This not only improves collaboration within teams and departments, but also across company divisions. After all, everyone works on the same basis: the company data. Equipped with powerful analysis functions, SAP Joule enables users to gain data-based insights, recognize patterns hidden in data and identify trends - and ultimately make well-founded, data-driven decisions.

Companies do not have to worry about the security of their data in all of this. SAP Joule is equipped with a kind of intermediate layer that ensures that the generated output and the corresponding company data remain in the SAP environment. Transmission to the (US) provider of the underlying LLM is excluded. This is a great added value, especially for forecasts that are created on the basis of highly confidential data.

Thanks to the strategic technology partnership announced by SAP and Microsoft in June 2024, large companies and corporations in particular will benefit from the integration of the two AI assistants SAP Joule and Microsoft 365 Copilot will benefit. The aim of the link is to combine SAP company data with contextual knowledge from Microsoft 365 applications. This means that while users previously had to choose one of the two AI assistants in the respective business context, they will soon be able to use SAP Joule to access data that was previously only available in the Microsoft 365 environment - and vice versa. All they have to do is ask a question or formulate a task via a prompt - thanks to bidirectional data integration, the AI assistant of their choice accesses the required information and delivers the desired result. SAP cites the following exampleusers can use SAP Joule and SAP Concur to book a flight, the Microsoft 365 Copilot then notes in the Outlook calendar. The seamless integration enables users to not only make better decisions faster, but also to noticeably increase efficiency in everyday work processes.

The most obvious disadvantage of SAP Joule is not a functional one, but a strategic one. This is because full access to SAP Joule is only available to customers who use SAP's cloud solutions. Companies that use SAP on-premise are not allowed to work with the AI assistant. In addition, the costs associated with using SAP Joule are difficult to calculate due to a complicated and non-transparent license model. This is because companies have to pay for the number of tokens used. And this can vary greatly - depending on which SAP modules companies use, the degree of customization, the type of prompt users enter and the output SAP Joule generates. In the case of standard solutions, SAP Joule is simply available at the touch of a button. For customized developments, on the other hand, providing the AI assistant can be quite challenging.

The big advantage of SAP Joule is undoubtedly the access to company data. Contextualizing this data with the help of the AI assistant will noticeably increase efficiency and productivity within departments and at the same time significantly improve cross-departmental collaboration. The integration of SAP Joule with Microsoft 365 Copilot is another milestone in the provision of data that was previously reserved for specific IT silos.

SAP plans to have integrated SAP Joule into the majority of its solutions by the end of 2024 - the last ones are to follow by the end of the second quarter of 2025. SAP Joule will then have access to truly all business data, revolutionizing the management of complex business processes.