SAP has announced ‘Joule for Developers’, its new an AI coding tool for programmers and developers aimed at driving staff efficiencies and freeing up time for tasks that AI cannot complete.
The capabilities will be available in the SAP Business Suite, more specifically SAP Build Process Automation and SAP Buil Apps. Joule for Developers will bolster previously announced capabilities in SAP Build Code and ABAP Cloud.
“This can free up time for developers to be more productive, creative, and proficient in accelerating ABAP, Java, JavaScript, and visual tool-based application development and automation of SAP processes,” SAP stated.
Joule can understand SAP development framework nuances, anticipate developer needs, offer suggestions, and automate repetitive tasks such as documentation and sample data generation.
More staff members can take advantage of the tool as Joule includes low-code capabilities.
One of the tool's key functions is application development. In this capacity, it is capable of generating code, data models, UIs, and sampling data across SAP programming models for Java, JavaScript, and ABAP.
It can also refactor and generate explanations of existing code, as well as generate automation workflows and business rules.
“The latest AI features across SAP Build solutions provide developers with a powerful tool kit to build and extend business applications across both SAP and non-SAP systems,” Holger Mueller, analyst at Constellation Research, said.
Another AI coding tool
SAP is the latest firm to release an AI coding assistant for its customers, with many of the big names in tech having already put out similar products in recent months.
Google has rolled out Gemini Code Assist and Gemini Code Assist Enterprise, for example, tools designed to speed up developer workflows by reducing toil with AI.
There’s also GitHub Copilot for which GitHub recently released a string of updates including a new ‘agent mode’ that will let developers use AI to complete entire tasks or requests.
Research from GitHub has suggested that developers are reporting heightened efficiency and improved code quality on the back of AI coding tools, though other research from Harness has found AI generated code is causing teams to get bogged down in manual remediations.
