SAP to integrate AI across cloud suites amid projected investment growth in Asia-Pacific

The German software giant will integrate AI-powered solutions across all of its suites as AI investment in the Asia-Pacific is expected to reach $28 million over the next five years.

SAP's chief revenue officer, Scott Russell, speaks at the SAP Now Korea forum held in central Seoul on Tuesday. [SAP KOREA]

German software giant SAP projects that AI investments in the Asia-Pacific region will reach $28 billion over the next five years, aligning with the company's business strategy to integrate AI into its cloud suites.

SAP's chief revenue officer, Scott Russell, said on Tuesday that 43 percent of Korean companies utilize its AI-powered cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) product, experiencing an average boost of 7 percent in revenue growth annually. The survey was conducted on domestic companies that collectively account for 90 percent of the nation's economic revenue.

“Forty-three percent of Korean companies are using ‘Rise with SAP,’” Russell said at the annual press event held in southern Seoul, where the company outlined its road map to develop and deploy AI cloud solutions.

He also noted that local firms that deployed Grow with SAP, another ERP cloud platform for mid-sized enterprises, saw revenue double compared to companies that utilize on-premises infrastructure, as well as an improved cash conversion cycle by 42 percent and an inventory reduction of 10 percent.

“The reason for that is because in the cloud, you’re able to access innovation much faster, which you can use more immediately for businesses than those who don’t,” Russell continued. “I know in Korea, [the growth] is very strong. I suspect it’s consistent, maybe a little faster [than in other countries].”

In line with the global race to adopt AI, the software company is integrating its AI chatbot Joule in its cloud suites. Initially deployed in SAP's ERP portfolios such as SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Start, Joule will also become part of SAP Ariba and SAP Analytics Cloud within the year.

The Korean language will also be supported in the chatbot this year.

The software giant emphasized that AI models will be embedded across all of its cloud software to allow clients to develop their own AI functions tailored to their needs.

“The most important part of our AI strategy is our AI co-pilot Joule,” said Madhur Mayank Sharma, head of SAP’s AI product engineering. “With Joule, customers can use it for transactional capabilities, navigational capabilities and information extraction. The latest [function] which we have added is the analytical capabilities. With Joule, customers can now bring in their unstructured and structured information at one place through document-grounding and now can interact and ask questions on top of this structured and unstructured data in a seamless manner.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]