AI agents are currently driving the biggest wave of innovation in IT. These intelligent assistants are taking over more and more tasks, enabling professionals to work more efficiently. At SAP, this development is taking shape in Joule, a personal assistant that takes over the user interface of all SAP solutions.
Many business professionals still spend valuable time navigating applications and setting filters to generate the right reports. In the best-case scenario, they work with modern SaaS solutions, but often they are stuck with outdated software that is complex and time-consuming to use.
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The evolution of Joule as a business assistant
Joule was announced 1.5 years ago as a relatively simple digital assistant that could answer a few questions. At the time, Joule had limited ability to communicate with the SAP systems in the background to obtain data. Joule now speaks 11 languages and can execute actions and navigate through applications.
Joule has now become more of an orchestration layer for all AI agents operating in the background, which Joule can control to obtain information or perform tasks. This gives Joule an increasingly central role, taking over the role of many applications.
Joule has various AI agents, who, in turn, have specific skills to communicate with all SAP applications. A sales AI agent, for example, has multiple skills, such as creating an order, compiling a quote, providing information, sending information, and so on. The number of “skills” that Joule has at its disposal has now risen to 1,600, which will only continue to grow. This is especially true as customers use Joule more and more, because they can create skills themselves. SAP will undoubtedly monitor which skills are used frequently or are effective to make them more widely available.
Joule as the starting point and end point for business interaction
The fundamental transformation that is now taking place is that Joule is increasingly becoming the starting point, but also the end point, for business professionals to gather insights and take action. The user interface (UX) of SAP solutions will increasingly revolve around Joule, making systems more accessible to everyone. Soon, business professionals will ask Joule everything instead of clicking 5 to 10 times to get the right reports with the specific filters.
For example, instead of going through multiple screens, users can simply ask, “Show me an overview of all sales orders over $100,000” or “Give me a list of all employees on long-term sick leave.” Where you would typically have to navigate through menus and set filters, Joule can interpret this command and display the result within 10 seconds.
Sean Kosk, Chief AI Strategy Officer at SAP, explains: “Newer generations entering the labor market find it very easy to simply interact with the system. You no longer have to think about which business application to consult.”
This changes the UX in two important ways:
- Users can ask Joule at any time what is happening, what they need, or for an explanation of what they see. Joule is therefore always available, wherever you are.
- Instead of multiple clicks to generate a report with specific filters, users can simply ask Joule for, say, “an overview of all purchase orders over $50,000.”
Joule as an orchestrator of AI agents
What makes Joule so powerful is that it now operates as an orchestrator for different AI agents. SAP has announced that around 40 predefined AI agents will specialize in various business divisions. One example is dispute management, where an AI agent can read and understand a dispute, consult relevant documents, and gather the necessary information.
Read also: SAP presents new Joule AI Agents within the Business Suite
SAP customers were already able to build skills, but now they can also build AI agents. This means that Joule’s capabilities can be expanded at lightning speed. It even allows Joule to collect information or perform actions on third-party systems. After all, many organizations do not only use SAP solutions. This also allows communication with Salesforce or Workday, for example.
In addition, Joule itself is becoming increasingly “agentic,” which means that the AI can independently plan and execute complex tasks. Joule can combine multiple skills and AI agents to handle assignments without user intervention. For example, after the command “Give a bonus payment to the five best salespeople of this year and send them an email,” Joule will automatically determine which steps are necessary, execute them correctly, and handle the entire process.
24/7 business assistance with external insights
However, Joule as an assistant within SAP is just the beginning. If SAP has its way, Joule will become your complete business assistant. Thanks to its integration with WalkMe, Joule can follow users wherever they go on the web. Many organizations that use WalkMe have the WalkMe browser plugin running, to which Joule is added.
This ensures that Joule is always ready to help and support you, even outside SAP systems. WalkMe can technically read and understand a web page, providing Joule with the proper context to help the user. Whether you need to fill out an expense report on an SAP Concur page or read a news article on Techzine.
You can ask Joule for help at any time. For example, if you read an article about economic sanctions, shipping blockages, or major IT disruptions, you can ask Joule whether this will also affect your organization. Joule can then consult SAP’s knowledge graph to check for possible supply chain effects, but it also has a partnership with Perplexity to retrieve external data and provide clarification.
Perplexity is an AI-based search engine that provides context on many topics. It is similar to Google’s AI overviews but works in the background via APIs so that SAP can use the information within Joule.
A boost in efficiency for business professionals
Integrating Joule into business professionals’ daily work promises significant efficiency gains. Joule’s “action bar” proactively makes suggestions based on what you are viewing or doing rather than passively waiting for input.
In the future, Joule will increasingly function as a 24/7 personal business assistant. When you start up your computer in the morning, it can inform you about developments that have taken place overnight and that impact your organization.
Conclusion
Joule’s evolution from a simple digital co-pilot to an always-available business assistant fundamentally changes how we interact with business software. The focus is shifting from SaaS, spreadsheets, and data entry to an AI experience that is more intuitive, efficient, and always present.
For many business users, the assistant will be the starting and end points for using business software much more often. This means that SAP customers can expect significant changes in their environments in the coming months. Joule will play an increasingly prominent role in all user interfaces. Business professionals who use SAP will soon be unable to do without Joule, as it will become an indispensable partner that makes work much easier. Joule always knows the answer and the way around the software, so users no longer have to search or struggle through complex business processes.
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