SAP Business AI: A New Era of Embedded Intelligence?

Over the past year, leading vendors like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle—and of course SAP—have embraced a seismic shift toward an AI-first approach. According to a Salesforce report, 84% of enterprise CIOs now view AI as “crucial as the internet”. 

On the other hand, 40% of them are already deploying intelligent agents and another 41% planning to do so within the next year. So, this isn’t a passing trend—it’s a competitive imperative.  

The fact is that we are seeing a clear demand in today’s market, as businesses are looking for end‑to‑end intelligence, not addon tools.  And SAP Business AI answers that call by rebuilding its suite around SAP Joule agents, using them as the connective tissue that transforms legacy modules into a context-aware ecosystem.  

But how exactly does this architecture work? What’s powering Joule behind the scenes? And what will it take for businesses to bring this AI-native vision into their own operations? 

Let’s unpack the foundations of SAP Business AI—and why they matter now more than ever. 

How SAP has embedded AI into its products

As we saw in our previous article, SAP’s AI-first approach with Joule AI agents goes beyond a simple addon. It means building intelligence directly into the core of each product as an essential part of how the system works.  

Across every major area—ERP, HR, supply chain, and customer experience—SAP has delivered hundreds of embedded AI features that are ready to use out of the box. But, to make this transformation tangible, here’s a breakdown of how SAP Business AI powers different product domains: 

The infrastructure behind SAP Business AI

So, behind every intelligent response from SAP Joule, every AI-driven automation, and every predictive insight across the SAP suite is a powerful architectural layer: the SAP AI Foundation. 

Built on SAP BTP, the AI Foundation provides everything developers, data teams, and solution architects need to build, deploy, and scale enterprise-grade AI. But unlike isolated data science tools, SAP’s AI Foundation is deeply embedded in the business context—making AI not just possible, but relevant and reliable. 

But this infrastructure not only enables developers and partners to build custom AI-powered apps and workflows quickly. It also enables Joule’s most advanced capabilities:  

• Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).

• Dynamic context awareness.

• Multi-agent orchestration

For instance, when Joule responds to a user’s query about inventory delays, it isn’t pulling from static data—it’s accessing real-time, semantically structured business information through the AI Foundation’s graph and vector services. 

This way, as SAP continues to expand its AI-native vision, the AI Foundation will evolve too—with tools for fine-tuning LLMs on customer data, agentic system design, and a foundation model trained on billions of rows of structured business data.  

That means more precision, more autonomy, and more business-specific intelligence. But also that we must start thinking in a new way of architecture that brings down the old data silos in a secure, quick, and efficient way. And that requires certified resources.

SAP BDC: The Mind Behind Joule AI agents

To fully understand how SAP Joule AI agents deliver real-time, intelligent responses across the enterprise, we need to look at the Business Data Cloud (BDC). 

While Joule is the face of SAP business AI—the conversational agent that “interacts” with business users—BDC is the mind. In short, it’s what gives your AI agents the ability to reason, contextualize, and act across departments, applications, and workflows.  But let’s see it’s four basic components: 

1. One platform to centralize all your data

The first thing BDC does is break down data silos. Whether you’re working with SAP-native systems (like S/4HANA, SuccessFactors, or Ariba) or external sources like PDFs, Excel sheets, Salesforce, or Oracle—BDC ingests it all. Structured or unstructured, SAP or non-SAP, it’s all pulled into one centralized data layer. 

2. Datasphere: Governance, context, and modeling built-in

This is where SAP Datasphere, powered by Databricks, comes into play. Datasphere applies semantic modeling, governance rules, and business context to your data—so that it’s not just stored but made intelligent.  

For example, a supply chain manager facing a potential delay can ask Joule, “Which shipments are at risk this week?” Datasphere connects and harmonizes data from SAP (inventory), Excel (supplier timelines), and a legacy transport system.  

This way, it gives Joule the context it needs to identify risks, flag late suppliers, and suggest actions based on business-critical thresholds. That’s the difference between raw data and actionable insights. 

3. Training Joule on trusted business logic

With access to harmonized and semantically modeled information, Joule agents don’t just guess. They operate on trusted business logic—delivering responses and taking action with precision, relevance, and compliance. That includes: 

• Automating workflows

• Generating insights in real time

• Acting autonomously when appropriate

4. One mind. Many agents.

Each Joule agent can operate in its own domain—whether it’s finance, HR, or supply chain—but all share access to the same intelligent operational layer. This means that they can: 

• Maintain context across modules.

• Orchestrate cross-functional processes.

• Deliver unified experiences without jumping between disconnected systems.

In other words, BDC is what allows Joule to act less like a chatbot—and more like a digital colleague with full situational awareness of your business.

What Enterprises Need to Make It Happen

Now, bringing SAP Business AI into production isn’t just about switching on a new feature—it requires preparing the underlying architecture, aligning data models, and adapting processes for agent-driven orchestration. 

To successfully implement and scale Joule and the broader AI capabilities across the SAP suite, organizations must address three critical areas: data infrastructure, system integration, and workforce expertise.

1. A Data Foundation That’s AI-Ready

AI agents like Joule operate effectively only when they have access to clean, connected, and contextual data. That means most organizations will need to: 

• Ingest and harmonize data from both SAP and non-SAP sources (e.g., Oracle, ServiceNow, spreadsheets, PDFs).

• Use SAP Datasphere to apply semantic modeling, governance, and contextual mapping to structured and unstructured datasets.

• Establish a Business Data Cloud (BDC) layer that centralizes access to operational, financial, and customer data in real time.

Without this foundation, AI agents cannot maintain state or operate across functions with the accuracy and autonomy that Business AI demands.

2. Technical Components and System Architecture

Beyond data, enterprises must align their system landscape to support multi-agent orchestration, RAG, and workflow automation. Basically, all these ensures that your Joule AI agents have both the logic and reach to coordinate tasks across all your enterprise areas. This involves: 

• Deploying SAP BTP (Business Technology Platform) as the underlying layer for extensibility, integration, and custom app development.

• Enabling the SAP AI Foundation to provide model management, inference services, and access to graph/vector databases that power Joule’s context awareness.

• Connecting legacy and third-party systems into the same context model through SAP Integration Suite or API-level integration.

3. Skilled Professionals to Operationalize AI

Finally, enterprises will need access to professionals who can bridge technical and domain knowledge: 

• SAP-certified BTP developers and data engineers to build and maintain the Business Data Cloud and integrations.

• Process modelers with experience in SAP Signavio and AI-driven transformation frameworks.

• AI architects and prompt engineers who understand how to fine-tune SAP Joule agents, configure multi-agent systems, and ensure secure deployment in production environments.

In short, the SAP business AI approach is not based on Joule as a standalone app—it’s a system-wide capability that touches every layer of the enterprise stack. It requires a cross-functional team to architect, deploy, and scale it responsibly. 

What comes next: Data readiness and talent as strategic foundations

SAP’s AI-native evolution isn’t just a shift in software—it’s a shift in how business works. With SAP Joule acting as the new interface between users and enterprise systems, companies can automate complex workflows, unlock real-time insights, and create more human, intuitive experiences. 

But to get there, two things matter most: your data and your people. 

AI only delivers value when it’s grounded in clean, connected, and context-rich data. That means preparing your systems, aligning sources, and structuring information so that AI agents and copilots can act with precision. 

At the same time, none of these runs without the right resources. You need certified professionals who understand SAP’s new AI stack—people who can build, connect, and scale intelligent workflows across your business areas and aligned with both your goals and your industry standards. 

At Inclusion Cloud, we help organizations do exactly that. From preparing your SAP data foundation to implementing solutions with senior, certified resources, we’re ready to support your AI journey every step of the way. 

Let’s schedule a discovery call and explore how SAP Joule can help you move faster, work smarter, and lead in the AI-first enterprise era.