We are entering a new technological era where generative artificial intelligence (AI) has become widely recognized. Business AI by SAP can transform enterprise operations and address technology challenges through the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP).
Generative AI offers a range of new tools that greatly enhance and simplify our work lives. At SAP Sapphire, we introduced several use cases currently under development. When integrating AI into business operations, we ensure it is relevant, reliable, and responsible.
SAP BTP acts as a catalyst for leveraging generative AI within SAP and partner applications. The generative AI capabilities in SAP BTP enhance the developer experience, streamline integrations, improve process automation, enrich analytics and holistic planning, and simplify administrative tasks.
To illustrate, I will present three use cases demonstrating how AI capabilities in SAP BTP facilitate faster application development, provide a reference architecture for connecting applications to the most suitable large language model (LLM), and apply this architecture to a practical example—an app designed to monitor your CO2 footprint.
Building Enterprise Applications Faster
Building enterprise-grade applications can be time-consuming and requires a high level of expertise. Even seasoned developers rely on documentation and online communities like Stack Overflow for daily tasks. At SAP Labs, we’re pioneering innovative solutions to empower developers and accelerate the application development process.
One such advancement is leveraging the power of generative AI. This technology allows us to automatically generate an SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) application based on our Cloud Application Programming (CAP) model. In simpler terms, developers will soon be able to describe an application’s functionalities, and an AI-powered solution within the SAP Business Technology Platform will propose a blueprint for the actual application. Developers can then utilize a command-line tool to input a prompt and generate a CAP application as a starting point, allowing them to refine it further.
This revolutionary approach has the potential to reduce development timeframes significantly. Instead of weeks or months, building applications like extensions for SAP S/4HANA Cloud could be achieved in hours. The benefits are twofold: developers experience a boost in productivity and efficiency, while organizations gain the agility to respond to business needs through rapid innovation.
Enabling Large Language Model Choice
SAP BTP applications can integrate any large language model (LLM) or similarly powerful tools provided by hyperscale providers or open-source models.
We empower SAP BTP application developers to select the most suitable LLM for their use case. We have published a reference architecture that enables developers to connect their SAP BTP applications to OpenAI’s GPT or any other LLM.
This allows developers to use our CAP model on SAP BTP to integrate LLMs with SAP S/4HANA and other SAP solutions. Access to LLMs like GPT models will be facilitated through SAP’s AI Core, offering key advantages such as context validation and portability across different LLMs.
With this architecture, developers benefit from our co-engineering efforts with hyperscalers on SAP Single Sign-On and Private Link, ensuring that data remains secure within the network backbone and does not traverse the public internet.
SAP Business AI responsibly applies these powerful tools and services, ensuring their use is highly relevant to our customer’s business needs and delivers reliable outcomes.
Using the Power of AI for Good
The adage holds that you cannot manage what you cannot measure, especially regarding sustainability. However, AI provides a new tool to enhance sustainability efforts.
Using our reference architecture, we developed a sample app on SAP BTP in collaboration with a financial enterprise through a customer co-innovation project. This app helps bank customers understand how their consumption habits impact their carbon footprint, become more climate-conscious, and adjust their behaviours accordingly.
How does it work? The app analyzes spending behaviour using purchase data from banking customers and matches it with carbon emission information from our sustainability partner, Connect Earth. Built with SAP’s CAP model, the app integrates banking data with Connect Earth data and uses SAP’s AI Core on SAP BTP to access Microsoft Azure OpenAI services. These services summarize the data and provide recommendations for reducing carbon footprints.
This example demonstrates how the reference architecture for Microsoft Azure OpenAI services can be applied, with sample code available on GitHub.
These are just a few ways SAP uses generative AI to benefit professional developers, customers, and users.
It is exciting, and SAP is poised to lead enterprise software into the generative AI era. As a dedicated partner, we will support our customers through this transformation.
Conclusion
Generative AI integrated into SAP BTP revolutionizes business operations by enhancing productivity and fostering innovation. This integration empowers VE3 enterprises to expedite app development, select AI solutions tailored to their needs, and simplify integration processes. Our dedication to sustainability is exemplified through initiatives like the CO2 footprint monitoring app, which showcases how AI can drive meaningful environmental impact.
As your VE3 partner, we utilize SAP BTP’s AI capabilities to identify impactful use cases within your operations, develop custom solutions to optimize workflows and ensure responsible implementation. Contact VE3 today to discover how generative AI can unlock new opportunities for your business and propel you into an AI-driven future.
