SAP Boosts Cloud Business with AI, C3.ai Thrives in AI Surge and more

Pivot 5: 5 stories. 5 minutes a day. 5 days a week.

1. SAP's AI Integration Enhances Cloud-Based Business Models

At the recent SAP Sapphire Conference, SAP highlighted its increased focus on responsible AI, sustainability, and empowering customers to navigate challenges in the cloud era.

SAP is integrating its AI capabilities into SAP S/4HANA Cloud, aiming to help finance teams manage costs, reduce risks, and respond swiftly to changes in customer sentiment. SAP AI Business Services and AI-based collaborative applications will aid sales, commerce and services teams in enhancing operational efficiency. SAP is also incorporating AI into industry-specific solutions, such as Predictive Replenishment for inventory management. In partnership with Microsoft, SAP is looking to boost human productivity and growth in workplaces through Generative AI. Furthermore, SAP's extended partnership with Google aims to provide open-data offerings to customers.

Additionally, SAP is addressing carbon tracking by expanding its ERP software's resource definition to include carbon, launching the Green Ledger initiative.

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2. C3.ai Poised for Growth Amid AI Boom

AI's integration into corporate operations is predicted to enhance productivity and customer experience.

OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT, is a prominent tool expected to facilitate this growth. Ark Investment Management projects that AI investments could result in a four-fold productivity increase for knowledge workers by 2030, adding $200 trillion to the global economy. C3.ai, assisting businesses in accessing AI, is set to benefit significantly. The company offers over 40 applications for various industries, and its customer engagements grew by 35% in fiscal 2023. Despite slowed revenue growth due to a transition to consumption-based pricing and a substantial net loss due to high R&D costs, C3.ai forecasts a 20% growth in fiscal 2024.

While its stock trades 78% below its all-time high, it has risen by 213% year to date, signalling burgeoning AI investment interest.

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3. Google AI Enhances Priceline's Travel Experience

Priceline, part of Booking Holdings, plans to launch a sophisticated AI chatbot and personalized hotel suggestions using Google's AI technology.

This collaboration aims to elevate trip planning experiences for users, providing accurate information through generative AI like ChatGPT. This partnership allows Priceline access to essential data like hotel prices from existing resources. Simultaneously, Google sees this as a strategic opportunity to grow its AI business and narrow its gap with cloud service rivals, Amazon and Microsoft. Priceline's adoption of AI could enhance its competitiveness amidst other travel platforms. Even its competitor, Expedia, has integrated ChatGPT into its smartphone app for improved customer interactions.

The partnership highlights the increasing influence of AI in enhancing customer experiences and business growth in the travel industry.

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4. Glean Launches AI-powered Assistant to Boost Workplace Productivity

Palo Alto-based startup, Glean, known for its enterprise search capabilities, has announced Glean Chat, a ChatGPT-like assistant designed to boost workplace productivity.

This tool allows users to answer queries and analyze data derived exclusively from their company's applications. Glean's unique trusted knowledge model underpins this technology, focusing on company knowledge and context, data governance, and full referenceability. Unlike Glean's initial enterprise search offering, Glean Chat uses a conversational interface, understanding the sequence and context of discussions. It functions across applications and knowledge sources like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, and more, delivering personalized, relevant responses while adhering to data permissions and governance rules.

Glean CEO Arvind Jain emphasized the role of large language models (LLM) in handling complex tasks, and Glean Chat's ability to manage data governance in real-time, thus avoiding information leakage.

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5. Apple's Cautious Approach to AI: Prudence or Missed Opportunity?

At Google's I/O conference in May, AI was a prominent topic, while at Apple's WWDC, it was conspicuously absent, replaced with references to "machine learning".

This avoidance is part of Apple's preference to focus on the functionality that AI, or machine learning, offers, rather than the buzzword itself. This year's WWDC highlighted machine learning-powered features like improved autocorrect, personalized volume for AirPods, and intelligently curated prompts in the new Journal app. Despite these incremental enhancements, critics argue that Apple is missing a significant opportunity, especially regarding Siri, Apple's digital assistant. Competing tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Meta are heavily investing in AI, pushing boundaries and reaping monetary benefits.

However, as a hardware-focused company, Apple's strategy could be seen as prudent, focusing on improving user experience rather than pursuing potentially disruptive innovation.

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