SAP brings CX apps under one platform, debuts CX AI Toolkit
SAP releases a CX-specific AI toolkit that enables a digital 'personal shopper' and custom deployments of generative AI throughout the customer experience.
SAP today released a number of new features for its sales, marketing, e-commerce and service applications. Maybe more importantly, it has unified them -- and the rest of its business applications -- under one platform for automation, AI and app dev.
SAP designed that environment, the SAP Business Technology Platform, to accelerate project implementations and streamline integrations and operations, the company said.
Constellation Research analyst Liz Miller said it's the culmination of four years spent rearchitecting the SAP cloud environment to open CX data flow between CX apps -- and to its ERP platform, and vice versa.
It might not sound like a big tech splash of jaw-dropping new toys for users to play with, she added, but it was necessary for SAP to serve its customers and help them improve business outcomes as well as free data that had otherwise been distributed across many different acquired applications.
"It's just a different engineering motion that's happening," Miller said. "You can put CX everywhere, connected to all of your systems. It's actually doing what it's supposed to be doing."
You can put CX everywhere, connected to all of your systems. It's actually doing what it's supposed to be doing.
Liz MillerAnalyst, Constellation Research
CX AI Toolkit gains traction
SAP also released a bevy of generative AI tools for its Sales Cloud, including predictive forecasting that suggests to users what people in their customer organizations might be key to closing a deal. Also released was a capability to generate AI client summaries and "lead boosters" -- sales research tools about prospective clients that typically take hours of manual aggregating on the part of the sales rep.
Also out earlier this year -- SAP is showing early-adopter demos at its Sapphire user conference today in Orlando, Fla. -- was CX AI Toolkit, which enables SAP users to deploy custom generative AI services in SAP CX apps.
It also comes with some prebuilt generative AI tools, one being a personal shopper bot for SAP Commerce Cloud that can answer customers' questions from a user's knowledge base, and make product recommendations based on their questions and search activity. Another is an e-commerce image maker that SAP plans to release later this year.
The SAP CX AI Toolkit enables a digital shopping assistant, in which GenAI provides detailed answers to shoppers' questions based on the SAP user's knowledge content.
SAP has found traction for its generative AI tools for reducing repetitive work for customers on its S/4HANA cloud in service, sales and e-commerce, said Ritu Bhargava, president and chief product officer for industries and CX/CRM at SAP. Connecting front-office customer data to back-office data such as order history and inventory -- and adding generative AI features -- has helped drive efficiencies. Take, for example, a service call for a washing machine on the fritz.
"I don't need to ask you if it's under warranty or not, based on my connectivity to the back office," Bhargava said. "The service agent can know that you're calling about this part or this machine that you ordered from us. Instantly, I can know based on the data that lives in [S/4HANA] that it is covered under warranty, and I can offer a part replacement -- if that's the problem -- in real time, as the call or the chat is going on."
Don Fluckinger is a senior news writer for TechTarget Editorial. He covers customer experience, digital experience management and end-user computing. Got a tip? Email him.
