In the dynamic and ever-changing realm of technology, September 2023 witnessed the launch of Joule, a groundbreaking milestone. Joule stands out as a revolutionary natural-language, generative AI copilot poised to transform business operations fundamentally. This blog aims to demystify Joule by exploring its essence and functionality. We will delve into Joule’s capabilities and illustrate how it is set to revolutionize businesses of all sizes. Join us as we break down this innovative AI tool’s features and transformative potential. Imagine having a reliable AI assistant ready to improve and streamline your daily operations by leveraging natural language and generative capabilities across SAP’s cloud portfolio. That’s Joule, a natural-language, generative AI copilot.
Here, we’ll summarize the key features of Joule:
Now, let’s delve deeper into each of these points. Before we do that, it’s beneficial to quickly clarify a few key terminologies to help you understand Joule better.
What is Generative AI?
Generative AI is a form of artificial intelligence that can create new content, such as artwork, music, or realistic images, without explicit instructions on what to produce.
Generative AI can generate new and unique content by learning patterns from existing data. Think of it as a creative machine capable of imagining and producing original works, like art, music, or text, based on the patterns and information it has learned rather than directly copying from the data it has been exposed to.
To learn the basics of Generative AI, you may refer to our blog.
What is an AI Copilot?
Just as a copilot assists a pilot in navigating an aeroplane, an AI copilot is an intelligent assistant that aids you in various tasks. An AI copilot leverages artificial intelligence to understand your needs, offering suggestions and support to streamline your work and enhance efficiency.
How Does an AI Copilot Work?
An AI copilot is a conversational interface powered by large language models (LLMs) to assist users with various tasks and decision-making processes. By utilizing LLMs, AI copilots can understand, analyze, and process extensive amounts of data effectively.
To illustrate, imagine you’re writing a report on your computer. An AI copilot could assist by suggesting better words or phrases, correcting spelling and grammar errors, and helping you find relevant information to include in your report. An AI copilot simplifies complex tasks, providing valuable guidance and support. This ultimately enhances the user experience and helps businesses achieve their goals more efficiently and effectively.
Some AI Copilots in the Market
In addition to Joule, several other AI copilots are available in the market. Microsoft Copilot is an intelligent AI-driven chat tool that engages in human-like conversations. GitHub Copilot is designed to assist developers in writing code more efficiently and effectively.
What is Data Contextualization?
Data contextualization involves adding relevant information to data to make it more meaningful and actionable. This can include background information, patterns, trends, outliers, and other contextual details to help users understand the true implications of the data.
What is Joule?
Imagine having a reliable AI companion who enhances and streamlines your daily operations through natural language and generative capabilities across SAP’s cloud portfolio. That’s Joule.
Joule is:
- An advanced generative AI copilot
- Integrated throughout SAP’s cloud enterprise portfolio
- Designed to deliver proactive and contextualized insights from SAP’s applications and third-party sources
Joule is created to help people complete tasks more quickly and achieve better business outcomes securely and competently.
How Will Customers Use Joule?
Joule functions by swiftly sorting through and contextualizing data from various systems to provide smarter insights. It will be embedded into SAP applications, spanning HR, finance, supply chain, procurement, customer experience, and the SAP Business Technology Platform. Joule will be pre-trained with SAP business data and processes. Users can simply ask a question or describe a problem in plain language. Joule will provide intelligent answers derived from extensive business data across the SAP portfolio and third-party sources, all while retaining context.
Imagine a manufacturer seeking to understand sales performance better. Joule can identify underperforming regions, link to other data sets to uncover supply chain issues, and automatically connect to the supply chain system to suggest potential fixes for the manufacturer to review.
In HR, Joule can assist in writing unbiased job descriptions and generating relevant interview questions.
Is Joule the Successor to SAP Conversational AI?
This was my first question when I heard about Joule’s announcement.
SAP Conversational AI was a platform for custom chatbot creation where customers had to build their content. As of January 2023, SAP Conversational AI has been placed in maintenance mode and is no longer actively developed. There is no direct successor to SAP Conversational AI. Joule is not a replacement or successor to SAP Conversational AI. Instead, Joule is directly embedded into SAP applications, providing immediate value without the need for custom content creation.
The image below summarizes the differences between SAP Conversational AI and Joule.
- Integration with SAP Applications: Joule offers a conversational user interface integrated with SAP applications. It features a rich web client that renders assistant responses using SAP Fiori-compliant UI controls.
- Enterprise-Readiness: Joule integrates with SAP backend systems out-of-the-box. It adheres to AI ethics, GDPR, and privacy controls while maintaining SOC-II compliance.
- Automatic Updates: Joule is automatically updated whenever new capabilities are added, or existing ones are changed.
Joule in SAP SuccessFactors HXM
Starting with the 2H 2023 release, Joule is available in SAP SuccessFactors.
SAP SuccessFactors users can now perform HR tasks using SAP’s new generative AI assistant, Joule. For example, employees can get answers to questions and complete HR-related tasks, such as approving or rejecting time-off requests and changing names, locations, and personal pronouns.
Additional functionalities, including clocking in and out, viewing pay statements, and writing unbiased job descriptions, will be available in early 2024.
Conclusion
Joule represents a significant advancement in AI technology, seamlessly integrated into SAP’s cloud enterprise portfolio. Its generative AI capabilities and contextual insights can transform business operations, making tasks more efficient and driving better outcomes.
As an SAP partner, VE3 is uniquely positioned to help you leverage Joule’s powerful features. Our expertise in implementing SAP solutions ensures you can fully harness Joule’s potential to optimize your business processes. Whether it’s integrating Joule into your existing systems, providing training, or offering ongoing support, VE3 is here to assist you every step.
Discover how VE3 can help unlock Joule’s full potential and drive your business forward. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can support your journey with SAP and Joule.
