SAP, the enterprise application software company, has recently introduced advanced artificial intelligence (AI) features to enhance its supply chain solutions. In a news release on April 22nd, SAP stated that these AI-driven insights generated from real-time data will assist customers in making better decisions throughout their supply chains, streamlining product development, and increasing manufacturing efficiency. Muhammad Alam, a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and SAP Product Engineering, expressed the need for agility and intelligence in businesses facing challenges such as supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and geopolitical uncertainties. SAP aims to drive innovation in these areas by offering AI-powered solutions for optimizing supply chain and manufacturing processes. SAP highlighted the benefits of having accurate and relevant real-time information, as it helps minimize the negative impact of supply chain disruptions for suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors. The company's customers have witnessed improvements in supply chain workforce productivity, as well as reductions in overall supply chain planning costs and inventory carrying costs. In its pursuit of meeting rising AI demand and driving cloud revenue, SAP appointed Philipp Herzig as its chief AI officer. Herzig's role involves overseeing the implementation of AI across SAP's suite of services.

He mentioned that over 24, 000 SAP customers have already adopted AI solutions, with less than 1% of them still utilizing on-premises systems. Herzig also emphasized that creating "out-of-the-box" AI services for cloud users requires minimal or no retraining. In a separate interview, Akli Adjaoute, an AI industry veteran and author of the book "Inside AI, " highlighted the importance of understanding AI as a tool rather than an independent entity. Adjaoute emphasized AI's reliance on data and its limitations in replicating human intelligence. While acknowledging its potential, he stressed the need to differentiate between the hype and reality of AI in order to fully grasp its promises and boundaries. PYMNTS also covered this topic and emphasized Adjaoute's perspective on AI, viewing it as a pattern-recognition tool rather than a thinking or reasoning entity. Adjaoute compared AI to the human ability to recognize patterns, citing that algorithms are designed for specific tasks based on this principle. For more B2B coverage from PYMNTS, you can subscribe to their daily B2B Newsletter.