A short historical foundation
With SAP, the ERP has always been a lifeline of the business. SAP S/4HANA, once a monochrome sketch of transactional processes, is now a vibrant canvas, its hues and textures enriched by artificial intelligence.
Today, with SAP S/4HANA, the business’s strategic evolution can have profound leaps when AI integration is treated not just as a technology upgrade but as a foundational shift to realizing efficiencies that help humans to apply their intelligence in the right way. At Mindset, we help our customers realize the capabilities of AI and the value the adoption of the latest technology can bring to the business.
Free up human hands for more creative endeavors! I first looked into Machine Learning in 2016 as the Cash Application was initially introduced into the roadmap as a front runner for using this new concept. This was not a theoretical exercise but a practical application that transformed routine tasks. Picture the meticulous work of reconciliation, now automated and the impact on using the human mind more creatively. .
Business Continuity Lights On – By 2017, predictive analytics had been introduced in the “Digital Core,” helping enterprises to anticipate failures and avoid operational disruptions by responding proactively!! Asset-intensive companies use these features for predictive maintenance, minimizing downtime, and optimizing asset utilization. This shift from reactive to proactive management is a crucial advantage in industries where downtime is a costly affair.
Picture a conversation, not a command line! In 2018, SAP introduced CoPilot, powered by natural language processing (NLP), enabling users to have conversations with the ERP system. Democratizing access to business insights where decisions needed to be made. This evolution, from command lines to conversational interfaces, marked a significant leap in user experience. The same year saw the rise of intelligent robotic process automation (RPA), automating workflows across procurement, supply chain, and finance.
What has 2025 brought for AI in SAP S/4HANA?
SAP’s Q1 2025 release for S/4HANA brings together several AI use cases designed to accelerate efficiency, automate routine processes, and unlock deeper business insights. With embedded AI, generative AI capabilities, and expanded automation, SAP customers can now take advantage of the intelligence of ERP even more strongly. With generative AI and Joule becoming available on general release, the value in implementing AI is even stronger.
The Q1 2025 SAP S/4HANA release saw:
The enhancements spanned 17 use cases across Data Integration for S/4HANA, Contract and Lease Management, Situation Handling, Portfolio and Location Management, Credit and Collection Management, Transportation Management, International Trade Management, Master Data Management, Overhead Cost Management, Data Quality Assurance for Master Data, Service Parts Planning, Extended Warehouse Management, Taxpayer Behaviours, Financial Accounting, Contract Accounting and In-House Repair
- Symphony of generative AI! Generative AI in features like Warehouse Task Planning and automated repair objects creation leading to automation of complex planning and processes as well as cost reduction through streamlining
- Joule provides contextual insights through natural language queries, streamlining navigation and automating complex tasks.
- Features like Navigation assistance through conversation and document summarization through Joule simplifying interactions and improving accessibility as well as realizing time savings.
- Integration of Situation Handling into Joule enables the user to have all situations available for correct decision making
- Predictive supply chain planning allows for “what-if” scenario analysis, enabling enterprises to navigate uncertainty with greater confidence.
- SAP Business Powered skills matching in projects
If we think in terms AI Technological concepts for the use cases that are being released in Q1 2025, you can find the following standing out:
- SAP Joule AI Co-pilot for conversational insights, Natural Language Processing (NLP) AI
- Machine Learning Models including Time Series ML Models, Predictive ML Models, LLMs (Large Language Models) in Joule
- Intelligent Document Processing , SAP AI Core Integration with Document AI
- Computer Vision AI
- SAP AI Core & AI Launchpad
- IoT Integration & Predictive AI
- SAP Business Data Cloud + Databricks
With 75 additional roadmap items in the SAP S/4HANA Rise (46) and Grow (29) roadmaps for 2025, SAP is poised to further entrench itself as the pioneer in AI for business software.
Call to Action
Using all the standard scenarios and SAP S/4HANA Technologies in conjunction with SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC), the customer can approach their AI journey in SAP S/4HANA in several ways.
- Strategy & Use Case Exploration: Assess the readiness and identify which areas will benefit the most from the journey to automation, prediction and contextual interpretation for better decisions. It is necessary to haveHigh-Value AI Identification with Human-Centered Workshops and Strategic Roadmap Development. With Mindset’s Workshops, we have helped our customers to explore AI use cases and capabilities across different lines of business while understanding the capabilities of AI in SAP.
- Embrace the Portfolio: Familiarize yourself with SAP’s AI portfolio—Joule, SAP Business AI, SAP AI Core. Develop a thoughtful integration plan, prioritizing education, awareness, and ethical governance.
- Get a Future Ready AI infrastructure with cross platform integrations while enabling your AI Platform. Identify the standard solution which will be the basis of the foundational journey enhanced by extensibility capabilities to increase efficiency and user experience. The SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) becomes the canvas, SAP S/4HANA Cloud the medium, and Joule the brushstroke. This is not about adding features, but about weaving AI into the very fabric of operations. We at Mindset have seen the advantage of adopting the right technology for the right use case to realize full value.
- Monitor the AI models and use cases to see where you might need a customer specific business process. Ensure end to end AI scaling across all thought processes involving your business users. Ensure AI driven monitoring with predictive analytics and real time monitoring. Get intelligent recommendations on further use cases for automating routine tasks.
- Ensure the team knows the ethical aspects across all the verticals of the company to take a compliant route in the journey to AI as an organization including robust governance and compliance.
Tune in to the Roundtable on 13th March to hear more about the capabilities of AI in SAP S/4HANA from the perspective of Jared Coyle, Chief AI Officer of SAP North America and our opinions by registering here.
