We’re constantly innovating to help organizations unlock the full potential of their data and AI capabilities.
That’s why we’re excited to introduce SAS Viya Copilot, an AI-driven conversational assistant embedded directly into the SAS Viya platform through integration of Microsoft Azure AI Foundry. With Viya Copilot, we’re transforming the way users interact with the platform, making it more intuitive, accessible and productive than ever before.
What is SAS Viya Copilot?
SAS Viya Copilot is a new set of features and capabilities within SAS Viya, that uses the power of Azure AI Foundry, including innovative AI models, to help make you more productive, while reducing the time to execute manual data and AI tasks.
At-a-glance, Viya Copilot:
- Speeds up data and AI development for high user productivity.
- Provides AI-driven intelligence and decision support.
- Retains human-in-the-loop oversight for trusted autonomy.
Whether you’re analyzing data, building machine learning models or gaining valuable insights – SAS Viya Copilot democratizes access to advanced analytics and AI for everyone. That means seasoned coders to those new to the world of data science.
SAS Viya Copilot marks another milestone in our five-year partnership with Microsoft. Built on Azure AI Foundry, it integrates advanced AI models and robust search and content safety services to support diverse use cases. For customers, it’s a powerful tool to boost analytics ROI and tackle critical business questions.
SAS Viya Copilot marks a significant milestone in our collaborative journey with SAS to leverage the power of AI and data analytics. Integrating an AI-driven conversational assistant directly into the SAS Viya platform empowers users to achieve improved levels of productivity and efficiency. This innovation democratizes access to advanced analytics, enabling users to make more informed decisions, streamline their workflows and fully harness the potential of their data.Lorraine Bardeen, Corporate Vice President and CTO, Commercial Solution Areas at Microsoft
Initial features of SAS Viya Copilot
In this first release of Viya Copilot, we’re excited to announce two features:
Code assistance for SAS users
Viya Copilot’s SAS code assistance is an AI-powered tool designed to help users generate, explain and annotate SAS code. While tools like GitHub Copilot have made coding easier for popular languages like Python and R, SAS users have lacked similar assistance – until now. Viya Copilot helps fill this gap by streamlining the coding process, enhancing collaboration and supporting both novice and experienced SAS users.
Users can:
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- Generate SAS code. Viya Copilot accelerates SAS code creation based on user input, ensuring accuracy and consistency.
- Explain SAS code. Viya Copilot provides clear, understandable explanations of existing SAS code, making complex scripts easier to follow and enabling more effective transfer of code maintenance.
- Comment SAS code. Viya Copilot generates meaningful comments within the code, improving readability and documentation, particularly valuable for maintaining legacy code written by others.
By simplifying the coding process, Viya Copilot empowers teams to work more efficiently, reduce errors and maintain SAS code with ease.
AI-powered model pipeline development
The second key feature of Viya Copilot is its support for model pipeline development. With this functionality, users gain access to a specialized AI assistant to help build, explain and improve their model pipelines.
Users can:
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- Explain model outputs. Viya Copilot generates clear explanations of the output at each step in the pipeline, empowering users to make better-informed decisions.
- Suggests and adds nodes to pipeline. Generate pipeline nodes based on the existing state of the pipeline and data.
- Answers questions accelerating model development tasks. It facilitates the consumption of user documentation, providing an effortless way to navigate and understand technical details.
This feature is designed for data scientists, citizen data scientists and business analysts who are building AI and analytical models. It helps them develop models more quickly and effectively while maintaining control and transparency.
SAS Viya Copilot and its ability to provide detailed insight into our code represent a transformative asset for generating regulatory documentation. By improving clarity, fostering efficient communication and streamlining the review process, Viya Copilot has the potential to significantly enhance the interactions with regulatory agencies, ultimately leading to a more effective pathway for approval and implementation of critical therapeutic strategies. Seth Seegobin, Executive Director of Biostatistics at AstraZeneca
A new era of productivity for AI developers and data users
With SAS Viya Copilot, users are no longer isolated from the complexities of AI and data science. Instead, they have a trusted advisor at their fingertips, providing intelligent suggestions and guidance every step of the way. This not only accelerates productivity but also levels the playing field by making advanced coding, data analysis and model development accessible to a broader range of users.
The ability to interact with SAS Viya through natural language and get personalized recommendations empowers users to make more informed decisions, improve collaboration and reduce the learning curve for those new to the platform.
What to expect next? More upcoming Viya Copilot functionalities
With SAS Viya Copilot, we’re transforming how businesses approach data analysis, model building and decision-making – making it faster, more intuitive and more inclusive. Our vision for the near future is to expand Viya Copilot with additional functionalities, from ETL generation, dashboard generation, debugging copilot, data prep copilot, etc.
