SAS Institute Inc. is using its SAS Innovate conference this week to introduce a sweeping set of product updates aimed at helping enterprises operationalize artificial intelligence with stronger governance, integrated data management and expanded agentic AI capabilities.

The announcements center on a new governance layer, enhancements to the SAS Viya platform and a growing portfolio of industry-specific AI agents and accelerators designed to move organizations beyond experimentation into production-scale deployments in specific use cases.

Governance at the forefront

At the core of the updates is SAS AI Navigator, a new software-as-a-service offering currently in private preview that’s designed to help enterprises inventory, monitor and govern AI use cases across models, agents and business processes. The platform is intended to address growing concerns about “shadow AI,” or tools and models operating outside the information technology organization’s oversight.

SAS cited research indicating that adoption of large language models and AI agents is outpacing investments in trustworthy AI, while analysts expect a growing number of compliance and security incidents to be tied to unauthorized AI deployments. Gartner recently predicted that more than 40% of enterprises will experience security or compliance incidents linked to shadow AI by 2030.

“AI governance is too often thought of as a compliance measure,” said Reggie Townsend, vice president of AI ethics, governance and social impact at SAS. “It’s a growth driver. Instead of fears of shadow AI putting the organization at risk, AI governance empowers people to push the limits of AI within a structured, transparent and secure environment.”

SAS said AI Navigator will provide a unified view of AI assets across their lifecycle, from experimentation through deployment and retirement, without requiring organizations to standardize on a single model or toolset. The platform is expected to be available in the third quarter of 2026 via Microsoft Corp.’s Azure Marketplace.

Agentic features

SAS also introduced a series of enhancements to its Viya analytics platform, positioning it as a foundation for “agentic AI” systems that combine AI assistants, autonomous agents and human oversight.

Enhancements to SAS Viya enable organizations to pair copilots and agents with human judgment and enterprise governance to improve confidence in decisions.

Key additions include SAS Viya Copilot, a set of embedded AI assistants designed to operate within analytics workflows rather than as standalone chat interfaces. The assistants support tasks such as data exploration, model development and decision-making using natural language, while maintaining governance controls.

The company also introduced a server based on the open Model Context Protocol standard that enables organizations to expose SAS analytics capabilities to external AI agents without duplicating logic or bypassing controls. An accompanying Agentic AI Accelerator provides frameworks and tools for building and deploying governed agents.

The company said the combined capabilities are intended to shift enterprises from isolated generative AI experiments toward integrated systems that connect insights, decisions and actions across business processes.

Beyond platform updates, SAS is expanding its portfolio of industry-focused AI agents, with a particular emphasis on complex operational scenarios.

The new SAS Supply Chain Agent is designed to automate and continuously optimize sales and operations planning, a process so complex that it is typically conducted no more than once a month. It can be used to simulate scenarios, forecast demand and adjust supply strategies in near real time, SAS said. Users interact through a conversational interface.

SAS provides ready-made AI models for entity resolution, document analysis, industrial safety, tax compliance and other areas.

Data management for AI scale

SAS also announced updates to its data management portfolio, focused on embedding governance and lineage directly into data workflows.

The updated approach emphasizes running analytics directly where data resides, rather than moving data between systems. Supporting technologies include SAS SpeedyStore, a data platform that combines transactional and analytical workloads into a single, secure database.

SAS is also extending AI assistance into the data lifecycle itself, with copilots and agents that help users discover, prepare and manage data within governed environments. The company said this approach is intended to improve trust and auditability as AI systems increasingly rely on automated decision-making.

By combining governance tooling, embedded AI assistants, agent frameworks and data management capabilities, SAS is positioning its platform as an end-to-end environment for building and managing AI systems that can scale while meeting regulatory and operational requirements.

Photo: SAS