TechEd Enterprise software behemoth SAP is preparing to roll out a number of features for programmers on its platform, including cloud-based integration capabilities, AI agents, and knowledge graphs.

Commentators, however, point out that the development environment still uses desktop tools and that it remains too soon to tell if AI agents will be beneficial for business.

During its yearly TechEd developer conference, the biggest software firm in Europe unveiled new capabilities for Joule, its LLM agent that "speaks the language of business." One of the new use cases is dispute management, wherein self-governing AI agents are programmed to examine and settle disputes pertaining to, say, inaccurate or absent bills.

Joule is ambitious, according to Constellation Research chief analyst Holger Mueller, because it aims to be an accessible assistant for every department at SAP. However, it was far too early to say if it would work or not.

Through its SAP Knowledge Graph solution, that will be available through Joule and SAP Datasphere in the first quarter of 2025, SAP also promises improved data analysis capabilities.

The company states that by employing "SAP-specific business semantics" to decrease erroneous or irrelevant results, it will effortlessly link relationships and context across SAP's broad data environment, "empowering organizations to make better decisions with their data". However, keep in mind that graph databases—which are likewise utilized to describe semantic relationships—are not the same as this. The relational database-based SAP HANA Cloud platform serves as the foundation for SAP Knowledge Graph.

The final round of TechEd announcements is geared toward developers. SAP Build, a component of the SAP cloud-based Business Technology Platform, is expected to provide code explanation and documentation search functionality. According to the business, Java and JavaScript developers would save time while developing using the low-code tool. Developers may create extensions for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition directly using wizard features. Moreover, SAP Build claims to offer a method for establishing cross-functional "fusion teams" that may create using the ABAP language of the vendor in order to provide "seamless access to ABAP Cloud development tools from SAP Build."