SAS Toronto event focuses on overcoming hurdles to successful customer AI projects

SAS partners played a bigger role than ever in the event this year, as SAS continues to move beyond its legacy direct sales days and invest more in its channel. TORONTO – Curiosity Meets Capability was the theme of the main keynote at the annual SAS Toronto roadshow for executives. The event this year was held Wednesday at the Globe and Mail Centre across the street from SAS's offices east of downtown Toronto, and there didn't appear to be a vacant seat in the house. Many of the execs in attendance were focused on AI, rather than being general line of business people, and the focus of the event was to explain to them how to optimize the chances of their projects being successful. "The goal is to demystify AI and walk through real world examples, to show why it's not that hard or that new," said Shadi Shahin, SAS's VP of Product Strategy, in the main keynote.