SAP and Microsoft are developing a generative AI solution to help customers address the talent gap.
The solutions aim to produce new methodologies to improve how businesses attract, retain and coach their employees. The tech giants will leverage SAP SuccessFactors solutions with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot in Viva Learning. SAP and Microsoft will also integrate Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service to utilize powerful language models that assess and create natural language.
Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO at Microsoft, said:
We have an incredible opportunity to deliver next-generation AI that will unlock productivity growth for every individual, organization and industry, including the human resources function. We’re building on our long-standing cloud partnership with SAP and bringing together the power of Microsoft 365 Copilot with SAP SuccessFactors solutions to transform how organizations attract and develop their most important resource – their people.”
How SAP Will Streamline Recruitment and Employee Learning
Microsoft and SAP’s collaboration, compounded by SAP’s use of the Azure OpenAI Service API, ensures the vendors work together on strategies for improving recruitment and employee learning processes.
For recruitment, SAP will leverage the Azure OpenAI Service API and data from SAP SuccessFactors solutions to generate compelling and targeted job descriptions. Integrating the SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting solution and Microsoft 365 allows business leaders to edit job descriptions using Copilot in Word with additional content and checks to detect bias. The final job descriptions will be published in SAP SuccessFactors to conclude the workflow.
SAP will also utilize the Azure OpenAI Service API to create interviewer prompts within Teams with suggested questions based on a candidate’s resume, the job description and similar jobs.
For learning, employees can use Copilot in Viva Learning to perform natural language queries to create personalized learning recommendations based on data and learning courses in SAP SuccessFactors solutions that fulfil the employee’s career and development goals.
After learning is concluded, the SAP SuccessFactors portfolio will update automatically, providing businesses with an up-to-date assessment of their skill landscapes.
Addressing Enterprise’s Talent Gap Concerns
SAP and Microsoft recognize that closing the talent gap demands optimizing recruitment in today’s competitive market and delivering effective development programmes to help employees grow. Several challenges are inherent to this process, including updating requirements regularly —as well as job descriptions and interview questions — and closing the gap between employees’ unique career ambitions and the cross-skilling and upskilling opportunities provided by the business.
Microsoft and SAP are collaborating to provide SAP customers with generative AI-powered offerings which attract the most qualified candidates for critical roles and create personalized insights to maintain employee engagement after they’ve been hired.
“For years, Microsoft and SAP have worked together to help drive their customers’ transformation journeys forward,” added Christian Klein, CEO and member of the Executive Board of SAP SE. “SAP has long embedded AI into our solutions, and we’re very excited about the opportunities generative AI unfolds for our industry and our customers. Today’s announcement is one example of how we are bringing the power of generative AI to business, building on 50 years of trusted innovation for companies worldwide.”
Microsoft’s Holistic AI Projects
2023 has seen Microsoft launch a diverse range of AI-powered solutions and partnerships, the most significant of which is arguably Copilot, which Nadella described at the time of Copilot’s announcement in March as “the greatest productivity tool on the planet”, with 20 enterprise customers being granted preview access to the solution.
The initial announcement outlined Copilot’s productivity-boosting features for PowerPoint and Excel, and Microsoft has since revealed the AI-powered solution’s integration with SharePoint and Microsoft Viva.
Last week, Microsoft expanded the Copilot Early Access Programme to an initial wave of 600 organizations after “overwhelming feedback” (said Jared Spataro, CVP of Modern Work and Business Applications at Microsoft) from those already enjoying preview access.
Microsoft also revealed that it was introducing Copilot AI capabilities to its 365 suite last week — including OneNote, Outlook and Whiteboard — meaning Microsoft has implemented its AI across its full 365 suite.
Copilot and the SAP generative AI collaboration aren’t Microsoft’s only AI-centric projects.
Last month, Microsoft announced that AI-based noise suppression would launch in December. According to the roadmap for the solution, the update will automatically remove any “unwelcome” noise in the background of a user’s meeting.
Siemens is also releasing a Teams-integrated app powered by generative AI to enhance productivity and innovation for industrial businesses. The app, Teamcenter for Microsoft Teams, is planned to launch later this year and is a collaboration between Teams’ platform, Siemens software for product lifecycle management (PLM), and, like with the Microsoft and SAP collaboration, Azure OpenAI Service’s language models and other Azure AI capabilities.
