SAP Unveils Business Data Cloud with Databricks to Enhance Business AI Capabilities

SAP's Revolutionary Launch of Business Data Cloud

On February 13, 2025, SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) unveiled the SAP Business Data Cloud during a significant announcement aimed at redefining enterprise data management. This innovative solution aims to unify all organizational data from SAP and third-party sources, creating a robust foundation that organizations can rely on for impactful decision-making and dependable AI operations. The SAP Business Data Cloud harmonizes critical data from essential applications with advanced data engineering and business analytics capabilities, paving the way for unprecedented levels of innovation and insight.

This strategic partnership with Databricks signifies a transformative approach to enterprise data management. By integrating Databricks' state-of-the-art technologies for data engineering and AI workloads, SAP allows organizations to maximize their data usage more efficiently than ever before. Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, expressed, "SAP Business Data Cloud unlocks the full value of business data for Business AI," emphasizing the synergy between SAP’s deep expertise in mission-critical processes and Databricks’ top-tier data engineering capabilities.

Ali Ghodsi, CEO and co-founder of Databricks, also highlighted the collaboration's significance, stating, "By joining forces with SAP, we’re enabling organizations to consolidate all their data—regardless of format or location—for governance, analysis, and the development of domain-specific AI applications within Databricks' Data Intelligence Platform."

Creating a Data Product Economy

The SAP Business Data Cloud also aims to stimulate growth in a data product economy. This allows for fully managed SAP data products across various business processes, including finance, procurement, and supply chain management through SAP S/4HANA and SAP Ariba, as well as talent and training data via SAP SuccessFactors. By preserving the original business context and semantics of these data products, businesses can gain immediate access to high-quality data without facing the burdensome costs associated with data extraction.

For instance, a finance director wanting to gauge the inflation's impact on profitability can seamlessly integrate real-time external data, such as Consumer Price Index figures, with internal financial data like ledgers or cost centers to generate a comprehensive financial overview.

Beyond data integration, SAP Business Data Cloud will introduce new functionalities termed "insight apps," which leverage data products and AI models linked to real-time data for advanced analytics and planning across all business units, encompassing core business analytics, finance, and human resources.

Markus Hartmann, VP of Corporate Technology of Henkel, underscored the solution’s potential: "SAP Business Data Cloud will enable us to uncover the value in our data and drive innovation throughout the organization. Its semantically rich data products and deep integration with Databricks will enhance our existing data products and allow us to model scenarios leveraging AI insights, building a sustainable future for our data ecosystems."

Realizing the Full Promise of AI Agents

Furthermore, the SAP Business Data Cloud is set to elevate the capabilities of Joule, SAP's generative AI co-pilot. By utilizing the highest quality enterprise dataset in the industry alongside the SAP Knowledge Graph—which offers a business-oriented data model—Joule’s agents will be empowered to thoroughly comprehend integral processes and collaborate across functions to address complex business challenges like never before.

Alongside this announcement, SAP also introduced new Joule-ready agents tailored for various sectors such as finance, services, and sales that will be accessible within the SAP Business Suite. In the finance sector, for example, these agents will collaborate on tasks to expedite claims processing and improve cash flow, while the sales agents will streamline multi-step business processes to swiftly resolve conflicts and handle customer inquiries.

Furthermore, SAP has launched an impactful agent creation capability, allowing clients to develop and deploy their custom AI agents, supplemented by a library of ready-to-deploy Joule agents from SAP. Leveraging SAP’s decades of experience in business processes, users can base their custom agents on the most relevant data and business context.

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