Enterprise software company SAP targeted improved human-AI interaction with a series of updates for its Joule generative AI (genAI) product unveiled during its annual TechEd developer conference.

Executive board member Muhammad Alam stated the Joule updates tap SAP’s expertise in business technology to improve the ways people interact with the genAI tool and the technology as a whole.

He said enhancements including collaborative AI agents enable a new relationship with the technology and “transform the landscape of modern business”.

SAP’s Joule AI agents feature custom competencies the company stated makes them capable of tackling “complex cross-disciplinary tasks”.

The enhancement means the AI will work on 80 per cent of SAP’s most-used business functions while pushing the system deeper into its range of products.

SAP’s agents are specialised to “tackle specific tasks and enable them to collaborate on intricate business workflows”, the company explained. They are able to adapt their approach depending on the objectives of each job and are broadly described as taking on mundane roles to enable people to focus on higher level matters.

Also unveiled at SAP TechEd was the Knowledge Graph, a forthcoming product which promises to improve the use of company data for decision making with a focus on core functions including purchasing, invoicing and customer relations.

SAP plans to release it in Q1 2025.

In addition, SAP lined up developer-focussed updates spanning coding and documentation searches, targeting a reduction in the time required to produce Java and JavaScript-based services.

SAP rounded off its announcements by revealing it completed a mission to train 2 million people in AI, well ahead of its 2025 deadline.