“AI is part of a technology evolution”. Patrick Maroney, Principal Executive Advisor at SAP
Patrick Maroney, Principal Executive Advisor at SAP
I am pleased to welcome Patrick Maroney, Principal Executive Advisor at SAP.
Website: SAP
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmaroneytech/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/patrickmaroney.bsky.social
Part I:
Introduction
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Hello, could you introduce yourself to Times of AI™ listeners and tell us about your professional background and current activity?
Patrick Maroney - SAP
Hello, my name is Patrick Maroney. I am a Principal Executive Advisor on SAP’s High Tech Industry Team. In that capacity, I work with the management teams of leading High Tech organizations helping to drive process improvements and leading business transformation initiatives.
I have over 30 years experience building and executing plans that drive strong software product and services revenue to fortune 500 companies working with their management teams on improving their manufacturing, supply chain, after-market, human capital management and go to market processes in support of driving high value business transformations.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Where does your interest in artificial intelligence (AI) come from?
AI is part of a technology evolution that opens the door to analyzing greater volumes of data quicker enabling faster, better insights and business outcomes. It is a key enabler to helping companies modertnize, simplify and drive improvements.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
What projects and business ideas are you working on?
AI is reshaping ERP. SAP is realizing its vision by bringing together 1) business AI 2) business data from every part of the business and 3) unparalleled business applications.
We are embedding AI in our solutions to further extend capabilities and customer value alongside end-to-end enterprise processes. There are over 300 embedd AI uses year to date; there will be over 400 by end of this year.
Additionally, we continue to enhance our AI foundation to meet the need for custom AI solutions. Customers and partners can leverage the same applications that SAP uses to build applications and extend capabilities.
There are more than 450 partner AI apps currently available. We are also developing next-gen AI agents to augment the workforce.
Powered by accurate data from SAP and non-SAP sources, SAP's collaborative AI agents are deployed and orchestrated to enhance operations, drive real-time insights, and optimize decision-making at scale. To learn more, you can start with this up-to-date corporate web site LINK. Click this link to access a set of links of the top case studies, articles, and technology review from the past 12 months.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
What are your objectives?
Patrick Maroney - SAP
My objectives are to help businesses run more efficiently and effectively with technology driving a significant ROI.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Who are they aimed at and in what areas are they being implemented?
These capabilities are aimed at every line-of-business (Finance, Spend, Supply Chain, HR, Sales, IT, etc.) from detailed users up to C-suite executives. You can learn more at the links I provided earlier.
Additionally, I invite you to follow me on Linkedin and/or BlueSky ; where I will continue to post additional case studies, publication and technology insights.
Part II:
Artificial intelligence (AI)
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Artificial intelligence is a multidisciplinary field. Like its use, there are several definitions of AI. How would you define artificial intelligence?
Patrick Maroney - SAP
Artificial Intelligence (or AI), is a technology that enables machines to augment human intelligence and problem solving capabilities for tasks like:
Visual perception,
Speech recognition,
Planning,
Decision making,
Translation between languages.
Intelligent machines with the capability to imitate human behavior in order to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence.
Some examples of AI we encounter in every day life are AI assistants like Apple's Siri, that does speech processing, Computer vision that unlocks your phone using facial recognition, and even the automatic completion of sentences when you are writing an email or sending someone a text.
AI transforms our industry at unparalleled speed and represents a leapfrog moment. Competitors and customers are quickly shifting investments to AI, sorting industry players into leaders and laggards, while increasing scrutiny of their spending.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
In your professional activity or in your company, do you use Large Language Models (LLMs)? In what contexts do you use LLMs?
Patrick Maroney - SAP
Yes.
I use LLMs to streamline my own work in writing documents as well as some simple programming. We have also partnered with many of the major LLM providers applying their technology to use case specific scenarios and augmenting it with our own neural net and knowledge graph functionality to reduce hallucinations in addition to leveraging our deep knowledge of business centric data context in order to bring new technology solutions to market.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
What is your point of view on AI Agents and Agentic AI?
In your professional activity or in your company, do you use AI Agents and Agentic AI? Why?
Patrick Maroney - SAP
AI agents enable the next era of enterprise management. We use them internally and provide them as a technology to our customers.
Systems of AI agents will be embedded into our applications fueled with context rich business data.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Do you see potential for businesses in the use of AI agents and AI agents? Why?
Patrick Maroney - SAP
I absolutely see the pontential for businesses in the use of AI agents as they will deliver a unique advantage in cross-functional collaboration, leveraging integrated data to enable smarter decisions and transformative outcomes across the enterprise.
For example, imagine a finance, a supply chain, and a workforce agent collaborating to reroute logistics in real time while adjusting staffing to meet production demands. All working in sync to keep the business running at peak efficiency.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
What do you think about contextual AI?
Patrick Maroney - SAP
Contextual AI is a necessary to realize the value I have described above to previous questions. For AI to be useful in cross business scenarios, it must understand and respond to the context of a conversation or situation.
Part III:
The Future of AI
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Questions about Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
Do you think AI systems will be able to achieve a level of autonomy? Why
Patrick Maroney - SAP
AI is by its definition a new form of automation. It will automate certain tasks while creating new opportunities for new tasks it can’t automate.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Would you and your company be interested in using AGI within your department?
What would be the benefits for your company?
Patrick Maroney - SAP
Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.
Anywhere AGI helps to drive improvements in Efficiency and/or Effectiveness, there will be interest in using it. The benefits are faster, better business outcomes.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
What emerging trend(s) do you believe in?
Patrick Maroney - SAP
We will see dramatic reductions in hallucinations from technologies like neural net and knowledge graph functionality.
There will be further enhancements in contextual AI systems capable of anlyaizeing previous interactions, user preferences, and situational factors to provier relevant resonses and actions.
This will lead to additional applications driving improvements in every line of business.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
From your point of view, what would be the ideal evolution of AI for you and your company?
Patrick Maroney - SAP
For businesses to embrace this vision they need a strong, integrated foundation where applications, data and AI come together seamlessly and reinforce each other.
Part IV:
AI Regulation
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
In your opinion, is the implementation of regulations on artificial intelligence a solution for better regulation of artificial intelligence? Why?
Patrick Maroney - SAP
Regulation plays an important role, but it must be applied properly. We should set our sights on the great opportunities new technologies offer – rather than focusing on the risks. The way forward for our economy is cloud and AI.
These technologies can help us unlock new levels of efficiency and innovation. If you cover a candle with a glass, the flame will be extinquished. Regulations cannot become this glass.
As we look to maximize the potential of this technology, there’s no doubt that regulation is essential. The key, however, is to foster innovation rather than hinder it.
Alexandre MARTIN - Times of AI™
Among the various existing regulations on artificial intelligence, which do you think is the most effective regulation for regulating artificial intelligence? Why?
Patrick Maroney - SAP
U.S. AI regulations generally allow for faster deployment and testing of cutting-edge technologies than other countries and regions.
While European privacy laws (GDPR) have protected individual rights better than other regions.
The European AI act is comprehensive but perhaps too stringent.
It does an excellent job of enabling human oversight and safeguards against discrimination in law enforcement applications such as predictive policing. It also does an excellent job in healthcare applications mandating high accuracy and reliability.
