SAP is continuing to add smart features to its cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution - S/4HANA Cloud - as it looks to help customers automate processes and react faster to information held in their core systems. It has also integrated S/4HANA with CoPilot, its digital assistant, allowing users to take action through a natural language interface, like Microsoft's Cortana. The 1805 release of S/4HANA Cloud, which is out today, will include 12 new'scenarios' to help customers optimise common processes. Nine of these are machine learning solutions and three are CoPilot'conversational UI scenarios'. Read next: S/4HANA: What does SAP's next generation ERP mean for customers?

SAP is continuing to add smart features to its cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution - S/4HANA Cloud - as it looks to help customers automate processes and react faster to information held in their core systems. It has also integrated S/4HANA with CoPilot, its digital assistant, allowing users to take action through a natural language interface, like Microsoft's Cortana. The 1805 release of S/4HANA Cloud, which is out today, will include 12 new'scenarios' to help customers optimise common processes. Nine of these are machine learning solutions and three are CoPilot'conversational UI scenarios'. Sven Denecken, SVP head of product management said of the announcement: "With enhanced machine learning capabilities, businesses can now have intelligent interactions that anticipate the needs of their end users – incorporating intelligent self-learning mechanisms, and liberating users from mundane tasks for higher level thinking. This will further support the journey to automation and the intelligent ERP."

As the amount of data increases, so does the need to manage it. With AI data management becomes much simpler to achieve business outcomes. The cloud environment has significantly changed from when it first came to market, with more options available and more capabilities including the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI). SAP recently announced new capabilities on SAP Cloud ERP, which will help benefit businesses in the ever changing digital environment. The first focuses on increasing the level of automation based on predictiveness and machine learning in the product.

With 2018 almost here, vendors are wondering where and in what technologies budgets will be spent in the coming months. What once were cutting edge technologies only two years ago are now reaching the mainstream. We turned to a number of executives to find out what technologies they thought would shape the coming 12 months. Unsurprisingly, while they named many different types of technologies, one common denominator connected them all -- artificial intelligence (AI). According to Moritz Zimmermann, CTO of SAP Hybris, 2017 was the year companies tapped AI and machine learning to transform the customer experience, making stories from sci-fi a reality through the presence of robots in stores and the use of virtual reality that allowed shoppers to test drive cars, design houses and more.

SAP is intent on delivering S/4HANA ERP in the cloud and will infuse it with machine learning and artificial intelligence. The company debuted the "next-generation intelligent" SAP S/4HANA Cloud at its Capital Markets Day event held at the New York Stock Exchange on Feb. 9. SAP S/4HANA Cloud is designed for enterprises of more than 1,500 employees and meets the increasing need for ERP delivered in the cloud, Sven Denecken, SAP's senior vice president of product marketing for S/4HANA, said after the event. SAP S/4HANA Cloud enables customers to meet their digital transformation needs and provides a platform to act on insights in real time, he said. "The benefits of having real-time data accessible from an in-memory platform has been there for a while, but we see the market shifting more and accepting cloud more in certain industries and in certain regions," Denecken said. "The consumption model of the cloud and the benefits of the cloud are now combining with this modern suite."