After a year when everyone was talking about artificial intelligence, SAS Institute Inc. has shown itself to be one of the most successful companies to ride the generative AI wave. It aims to continue that momentum in 2024.

At the SAS Innovate conference in Las Vegas from April 17-18, developers, analysts and business leaders will gather to talk about last year’s breakthrough technologies and view demos showcasing the abilities of SAS’ flagship product, SAS Viya.

“I think AI is going to be a secret weapon for them [SAS] because they’ve been around for so long, they have all these relationships with customers in every single industry vertical,” said industry analyst John Furrier in a recent episode of theCUBE Pod. “[With AI] you can actually abstract away that old technology and build bots, co-pilots or code assistants to manage software and then bring in new data functionality.”

Join theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, on April 17-18 for our exclusive coverage of SAS Innovate. TheCUBE Research analysts Dave Vellante and John Furrier will interview a wide range of guests on how AI is revolutionizing data analytics and what SAS is bringing to the table. (* Disclosure below.)

Check out what’s in store for theCUBE’s coverage of the SAS Innovate:

Driving automation with generative AI

Studies show that companies are eager to implement AI into their businesses. Twenty-two percent of firms are aggressively pursuing widespread integration of AI, and 33% are involved in limited implementation, according to the “CompTIA Industry Outlook 2024“ report.

“AI is everywhere but still is in the experimental phase within the enterprise,” said Dave Vellante, theCUBE’s chief analyst, in his recent Breaking Analysis column. “Our premise is that while the macro is still challenging, AI will be infused into all sectors and eventually be a rising tide for all areas of tech and beyond.” 

SAS is doing more than staying afloat. In 2023, the company continued to reap over $3 billion in annual sales and experienced a 30% sales growth for SAS Viya, a cloud-native platform that harnesses all of SAS’ capabilities, encompassing data management, data analytics and AI-driven automation.

At the SAS Explore event in September, the company previewed new developments in the platform. These include SAS Viya Workbench, a cloud-native development platform that allows developers to easily build and deploy AI models, and a new feature for Customer Intelligence 360 that would let its users integrate generative AI models of their choice in marketing and content creation.

“We are in the heat of implementing generative AI use cases with customers,” said Bryan Harris, executive vice president and chief technology officer of SAS, at theCUBE’s Supercloud 4 event in October. “They want to apply this technology … on real game-changing outcomes for the business. For us, it’s about how we make this generative AI thing a real tangible business return, where it’s a 10x return for these businesses.”

SAS prepares for the future

SAS originally announced its intent to go public in 2024 but is now planning to be IPO-ready in 2025, according to Jim Goodnight, the cofounder and chief executive officer of SAS, who stated that they would need to handle some “housekeeping” first. The company, which began as a project at North Carolina State University to analyze agricultural data, has grown to be one of the largest privately held software companies in the world.

“I hope they do an IPO; that’ll be fun to watch,” Vellante said, on theCUBE Pod. “This sort of American legend of a company, after five decades, going public would be amazing.”

At SAS Explore, the company “brought out the goods” when it came to demoing AI-based products, according to Furrier, and more than 60 demos from SAS Viya will be at Innovate.

“AI is a tailwind and an accelerant for SAS,” Furrier said. “It absolutely changes the game of the product capabilities, which actually makes them a net winner in the game.”

TheCUBE event livestream

Don’t miss theCUBE’s coverage of SAS Innovate from 4-17 to 4-18. Plus, you can watch theCUBE’s event coverage on-demand after the live event.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer various ways to watch theCUBE’s coverage of SAS Innovate, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

SiliconANGLE also has analyst deep dives in our Breaking Analysis podcast, available on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify.

Guests

During SAS Innovate, theCUBE Research analysts will talk with industry executives, innovators, technologists, investors and thought leaders about generative AI, quantum computing and cloud innovations. Stay tuned for our complete guest list.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the SAS Innovate event. No sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Image: SiliconANGLE