Google LLC’s cloud computing unit and German software maker SAP SE said today they’re collaborating to make it easier for customers to unite enterprise data from disparate sources so they can discover new insights and use the information to power artificial intelligence.

The two companies are longstanding technology partners, with Google Cloud playing a key role in helping enterprises migrate their on-premises SAP business applications and data estates to the public cloud.

Today, they said they’re turning their attention towards helping joint customers build an “end-to-end data cloud.” The plan is to use SAP Datasphere to pull data from across various parts of a business and send it all into Google Cloud’s fully managed and serverless data warehouse offering, BigQuery, where it can be analyzed more easily and used to train various AI programs.

It’s a key announcement for both companies. Google Cloud is trailing behind its cloud rivals Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Corp., but it recently delivered its first profitable quarter. The company’s expertise in AI is seen as a unique differentiator for its cloud platform. SAP, which is Europe’s largest software company, is keen to become more relevant in the cloud.

Google Cloud and SAP said the expanded partnership will help customers in a range of industries, from inventory and supply chain management to commerce and marketing. The main benefit is that it will eliminate common data silos that span various business departments, such as marketing, sales, finance and so on. So customers with wholesale business distribution models will gain full visibility into their products, from the moment they go into the sales pipeline, until they reach customers.

Customers will benefit from more harmonized datasets and the ability to explore them with AI. For instance, a store manager would be able to check how well a specific branch is stoked simply by asking a chatbot created with Google Cloud’s tools.

By drawing on Google Cloud’s various AI and machine learning services, companies will be able to train models on data from SAP, as well as non-SAP systems. Data that originates from SAP systems can be an extremely valuable asset, with critical information that can be applied to supply chain management, financial forecasting, human resources planning and other areas.

Google Cloud Chief Executive Thomas Kurian said the new offering will help joint customers to realize their AI ambitions much more quickly. “SAP and Google Cloud now offer an incredibly comprehensive and open data cloud, providing a foundation for the future of enterprise AI,” he said. “By deeply integrating SAP data and systems with our data cloud, customers will be able to utilize our analytics capabilities, as well as advanced AI tools and large language models to find new insights from their data.”

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. told SiliconANGLE said SAP doesn’t have its own cloud so it needs partners like Google. Meanwhile, Google is always thirsty for more data, he said. “But the real winners in this deal are the customers, who can bring their SAP data into the leading cloud platform for AI and machine learning,” Mueller explained.

For SAP, it’s yet another key partnership. The company has been keen to strengthen its AI capabilities in other areas lately. Earlier this month, it announced another key partnership with IBM Corp. that will see it embed IBM Watson AI with its digital assistant SAP Start, which serves as a unified entry point into its cloud-based software.

While the IBM partnership is all about making it easier to use SAP’s various applications and tools, the integration with Google Cloud is more about developing a hybrid cloud environment, speeding and simplifying data access and using data assets more effectively, Charles King of Pund-IT Inc. told SiliconANGLE. What’s especially relevant is that these capabilities are being made available right now.

“The larger story here is that while the market and many in the media seem fixated by the future potential of ChatGPT and OpenAI, SAP and its partners are moving quickly to leverage AI tools and solutions to measurably aid their enterprise customers today,” King said.

Image: Google/SAP