In a world where data is the new oil and artificial intelligence is the most powerful engine of progress, SAS, a recognized leader in advanced analytics, took an impressive step forward on May 14, 2025. Amidst the global AI boom and its SAS Innovate conference, the company unveiled a suite of groundbreaking updates for its cloud-native SAS Viya® platform. These innovations are designed not just to expand functionality but to dramatically increase speed, productivity, and trust when working with AI, offering users revolutionary tools such as intelligent AI agents and a personal AI Copilot assistant.
SAS Viya Intelligent Decisioning: Artificial Intelligence Gains Autonomy (Under Human Control). One of the most striking announcements was the enhancement of SAS Viya Intelligent Decisioning. This platform component now allows companies to easily build and deploy intelligent AI agents. What does this mean in practice? Imagine digital employees capable of autonomously performing complex analytical tasks, making decisions, and initiating actions based on real-time data. SAS emphasizes the importance of balance: the system allows for flexible configuration of the ratio between AI agent autonomy and the need for human oversight, considering task complexity, potential risks, and business goals. This paves the way for automating numerous processes, from personalized marketing to risk management and supply chain optimization, while maintaining the necessary level of supervision.
SAS Viya Copilot: Your Personal AI Navigator in the World of Analytics. Another exciting new feature is the SAS Viya Copilot. Built on Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, this conversational AI assistant is embedded directly into the SAS Viya platform and becomes a personal assistant for developers, data scientists, and business analysts. Copilot can significantly accelerate analytical, business, and industry-specific tasks. It assists in AI model development, suggests code options, answers questions about platform operation, and automates routine operations. While SAS Viya Copilot is currently available via an invitation-only private preview, its full launch is expected in the third quarter of 2025. This tool promises to democratize access to complex analytics and boost the productivity of every platform user.
Other Important Innovations for SAS Viya: In addition to AI agents and Copilot, SAS introduced SAS Data Maker – a tool for generating synthetic data (expected in Q3 2025), which will help address issues of data scarcity or privacy for model training. This was made possible by the recent acquisition of assets from Hazy, a pioneer in synthetic data. Support for programming languages in the SAS Viya Workbench cloud environment has also been expanded – now, in addition to Python and SAS, developers can use R, and Workbench itself is available on Microsoft Azure Marketplace in addition to AWS. For small and medium-sized businesses, a packaged cloud offering, SAS Managed Cloud Services: Viya Essentials, has been launched.
These updates demonstrate SAS commitment not just to following trends, but to shaping the future of analytics and AI. As research shows (e.g., the 2024 Futurum Group AI productivity study), SAS Viya helps users accelerate the AI lifecycle 4.6 times faster than competitors. With new tools, this figure promises to become even more impressive, allowing companies to make more informed decisions faster and achieve real business results in an era of pervasive intelligence.