SAP has introduced new generative capabilities for its Joule AI assistant to help developers by automating tedious tasks.
SAP says that it’s actively embedding AI capabilities across its Business Suite, including SAP Build, application development, and automation solutions. These tools are designed to help businesses extend and create bespoke applications with greater efficiency.
The company reports strong adoption of its SAP Build solutions, with over 17,000 customers globally now utilising the platform to build, automate, and innovate more rapidly. Today’s announcement marks a step forward in SAP’s ambition to boost developer productivity within this ecosystem.
The latest enhancements introduce Joule-powered AI features to SAP Build Process Automation and SAP Build Apps. These new functionalities complement the previously announced AI capabilities in SAP Build Code and ABAP Cloud and provide developers of all skillsets with AI-infused tools.
SAP believes these AI-powered tools will empower developers to deliver precise, contextualised outcomes and free up valuable time for more productive and creative work. Developers can now accelerate application development and the automation of SAP processes across ABAP, Java, JavaScript, and visual tool-based environments.
Joule AI: A powerful assistant for SAP developers
SAP highlights Joule as a trusted AI assistant capable of understanding the intricacies of the SAP development framework. It can anticipate developer needs, offer intelligent suggestions, and automate repetitive, mundane tasks such as documentation and sample data generation.
This support extends across low-code, pro-code, and automation projects, enabling developers to be more productive, creative, and proficient in accelerating the development of applications and extensions for business solutions like SAP S/4HANA.
Key capabilities of Joule include:
- Application creation: Generating code, user interfaces, data models, and sample data across SAP programming models for Java, JavaScript, and ABAP.
- Code optimisation: Refactoring code, creating unit tests, and generating code explanations and summaries using natural language queries.
- Process and workflow automation: Generating automation workflows and business rules through natural language input.
Holger Mueller, Principal Analyst & VP at Constellation Research, commented: “The latest AI features across SAP Build solutions provide developers with a powerful tool kit to build and extend business applications across both SAP and non-SAP systems.”
Chip Kleinheksel, Global SAP CTO and Principal at Deloitte Consulting, added: “In utilising generative AI, SAP Build Code offers our joint clients easier integration capabilities and a streamlined developer experience for cloud application development, boosting overall productivity and driving tangible value.”
Contextual and precise results
Joule leverages purpose-built large language models (LLMs) tailored for SAP workloads, including an ABAP LLM that powers code predictions and explanations. This allows developers to obtain precise, contextualised results – such as code snippets or explanations – more quickly and efficiently.
SAP’s assistant also provides real-time, context-aware support for code completion and optimisation, as well as the creation of automation pipelines that understand the customer’s application environment, development project artefacts, and SAP-specific syntax.
Key capabilities in this area include:
- Predictive code completion based on context, comments, and project heuristics.
- Code explanations for core data services (CDS) view entities, classes, interfaces, and functional modules.
- AI-powered assistance for documentation, best practices, and new concepts.
- Workflow development and decision assistance based on processes, API specifications, and connected systems.
SAP emphasises the fully AI-infused development environment that Joule provides. Its capabilities are integrated within SAP Build development tools, including ABAP, ensuring a smooth and cohesive AI-enhanced experience.
This integration eliminates the hassle of switching between development and AI tools, generating actionable insights and outputs within a single platform, allowing developers to focus on building innovative solutions.
Key features of this integrated approach include:
- Joule support for SAP Fiori apps, SAPUI5 guided development, and more within SAP Build solutions.
- Integration within SAP Business Application Studio and ABAP development tools for Eclipse, covering all Java, JavaScript, and ABAP-related development tasks.
- Integration into the SAP Build Process Automation project canvas for the generation and summarisation of processes, decisions, forms, and more, using natural language directly within the tool.
SAP sets out a roadmap for its Joule AI assistant
Over the past year, the company has introduced numerous capabilities, including Joule in SAP Build Code, freestyle SAPUI5 and SAP Fiori app development with AI, RAG with Joule, ABAP AI capabilities, Joule in SAP Build Work Zone and SAP Mobile Start, document grounding, and AI agents embedded within SAP Business Suite processes.
Looking ahead, SAP plans to introduce advanced features such as optimising business logic, automating documentation, and enhancing data protection and AI compliance. To facilitate an agentic journey, developers will be able to develop custom AI agents tailored to their specific needs.
Furthermore, as more customers adopt SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP intends to simplify the migration process with enhancements that can meticulously analyse legacy code, provide clear code explanations, and suggest code optimisations.
Altogether, these new features should help SAP developers build more innovative, efficient, and secure workflows and applications.
See also: Eclipse Foundation unveils open source AI development tools
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