NEWSROOM

SAP launches "Business Data Cloud" in collaboration with Databricks, ushering in a new era in data and AI. SAP, in collaboration with Databricks, has launched the "Business Data Cloud" product, designed to accelerate and streamline business processes using artificial intelligence. The partnership between these two industry experts is redefining enterprise data management and unlocking the potential of AI tools (Agentic AI).

SAP, a global leader in enterprise application software and business-focused AI solutions, introduces a new product to unite all SAP and third-party data, enabling organizations to make more effective decisions. SAP, a world leader in enterprise application software and business-focused AI solutions, has introduced a new product that unites all SAP and third-party data, enabling organizations to make more informed decisions. The new solution, named SAP Business Data Cloud, provides the reliable data foundation required to support trustworthy AI applications. This cloud-based data and AI platform, developed in collaboration with Databricks, helps organizations align data from their most critical applications with data engineering and business analytics capabilities, opening up new avenues for innovation and insights.

The significant partnership between SAP and Databricks is redefining how applications and data platforms work together, ushering in a new era of enterprise data management. The solution incorporates Databricks technology for data engineering, machine learning, and AI workloads.

SAP CEO Christian Klein stated that the SAP Business Data Cloud unleashes the full potential of enterprise data to accelerate business-focused AI (Business AI). He continued: “We’ve combined SAP’s unique expertise in critical business processes and rich data with Databricks’ world-class data engineering capabilities, creating a groundbreaking solution that enables companies to derive more value from data than ever before.”

Ali Ghodsi, Co-founder and CEO of Databricks, commented, “Every company around the world wants to extract more value from its data and achieve a higher return on its AI investments. By joining forces with SAP, we’re providing a solution that enables organizations to unify, manage, and analyze all their data, regardless of format or location, and develop domain-focused AI applications on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform.”

Introducing the Data Economy

SAP Business Data Cloud ensures the full management of SAP data products across all business processes, from financial, spending, and supply chain data in SAP S/4HANA and SAP Ariba to learning and talent data in SAP SuccessFactors. These data products provide instant access to high-quality data without the need for costly data acquisition processes while preserving the original business context and semantic structure. For example, when a CFO wants to assess the impact of rising inflation on profitability, they can integrate real-time external data, such as the consumer price index, with financial data products like general ledger accounts or cost centers to create a comprehensive financial view.

SAP Business Data Cloud will also provide users with "insight applications," new solutions containing real-time data-driven products and AI models, to offer advanced analytics and planning across all business areas, including core enterprise analytics, finance, and human resources.

Markus Hartmann, Corporate Vice President and Head of Business Technology for Henkel in Europe, APAC, and IMEA, a multinational chemicals and consumer goods company, stated, “SAP Business Data Cloud will help us unlock the value of our data and drive innovation across our business,” adding, “Semantically rich data products and deep Databricks integration will enhance our existing data products. It will enable us to model scenarios and leverage AI insights, allowing us to build a sustainable future for our data ecosystems.”

Meeting All Expectations of AI Tools

SAP Business Data Cloud will further enhance SAP’s generative AI-powered digital assistant, Joule, by accelerating workflows across various functions and improving business decisions with AI tools. Powered by the industry’s highest-quality enterprise datasets and SAP Knowledge Graph, which transforms data into a business-friendly model, Joule tools can deeply understand end-to-end business processes, collaborate across units, and solve complex business challenges. No other agent-creation technology can do this.

To emphasize the innovation of its new AI product, SAP also introduced a series of ready-to-use Joule tools for finance, service, sales, and other areas to be expanded in the future across the SAP Business Suite. For example, the finance tools will work together in various tasks to process requests more quickly and improve cash flow. Meanwhile, the Joule sales tools will accelerate multi-step business processes to resolve disputes and handle customer requests more swiftly.

Additionally, SAP announced a new and powerful “tool creation” feature, which, in addition to SAP’s ready-to-use Joule tool portfolio, will enable customers to create and use their own AI tools. SAP’s decades of expertise in business processes, integrated with guided workflows, allows users to base their custom tools on the most suitable data and business context for their goals.