SAP Rolls Out Joule Work to All Customers, Backed by Business AI Platform

Joule Work and the platform behind it

According to SAP, Joule Work is meant to go beyond text generation and fact-finding by helping people make decisions informed by their own data and answering complex business questions. The SAP Business AI Platform supplies the context, since SAP says it encodes decades of process and industry knowledge into its applications, knowledge graph and Joule Work.

The platform combines third-party models with SAP's own foundation models for ABAP code generation and predictions on structured data. It also includes SAP's proprietary domain models, which SAP says are pre-trained on SAP's code, data models and business processes. SAP argues that this lets each AI interaction use the model best suited to the task, with the accuracy and cost-efficiency that business-critical work demands.

Data comes through SAP Business Data Cloud, which SAP describes as a single unified source across SAP and non-SAP systems. SAP Reltio is now generally available in SAP Business Data Cloud and aims to give a single trusted view of customers, suppliers, products and employees.

Agents, Joule Studio and governance

SAP also wants AI to take action across business processes. It cites a Deloitte survey of more than 500 leaders, in which 74% said they would redesign or rebuild almost half of their business processes around AI agents. Through the SAP Autonomous Suite, SAP offers a library of ready-to-use Joule Agents across business functions, and Joule Work runs those workflows at scale.

For customization, Joule Work's Develop capability gives access to Joule Studio, which SAP says will soon be generally available. Customers can build and customize Joule Agents and connect third-party systems with open standards, drawing on over 11,800 pre-built business accelerators. According to benchmarking by Constellation Research, cited by SAP, Joule Studio is more than five times faster than do-it-yourself options. Anyone can describe what they want in natural language, while developers can use pro-code tools in the same environment. New agents are deployed into Joule Work and inherit SAP security and governance.

On governance, SAP AI Agent Hub is now generally available. SAP says it helps organizations govern every agent, LLM and MCP server across SAP and non-SAP environments. SAP Signavio Agent Mining is among new capabilities that measure the outcomes each agent delivers. SAP points to BCG data showing trust is the biggest barrier to AI adoption for 71% of technology buyers.

Customer results and what it means

Reinhausen, a maker of equipment for electrical grids, joined the Joule Work early adopter program. Peter Wied, director of Complexity Management there, said: "What once required up to an hour of manual effort across our SAP S/4HANA environment is now accessible in seconds through natural language."

Warehouse automation company KNAPP used Joule Studio to build an assistant that helps workers solve problems without waiting for an expert. SAP reports issue resolution times dropped by about 90%, while documentation and training times fell by about 80%.

SAP cites BCG research that the companies farthest ahead in scaling AI deliver 2.4 times the revenue growth and 2.8 times the EBITDA growth of those falling behind. The company says its goal is to make results like those of Reinhausen and KNAPP repeatable for every SAP customer. Customers can request a demo of Joule Work and the SAP Business AI Platform, and SAP TechEd starts October 27, in person and online.