Introducing the Administration Course
Exploring SAP SuccessFactors Succession Management
Assigning Succession Permissions
Exploring Succession Data and People Profile
Managing Positions
Utilizing the Succession Org Chart
Using Succession Talent Pools
Using the Position Tile View and Lineage Chart
Exploring the Talent Search
Running Matrix Grid Reports
Configuring Talent Cards and Creating Presentations
Importing Succession Data and Utilizing Calibration with Succession Planning
Planning Next Steps

Exploring AI Capabilities for Succession Management

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to configure the AI capabilities for Succession Management

SAP Business AI Introduction

SAP Business AI enhances the capabilities of SAP applications, enabling them to learn and improve business outcomes.­ This­ leads­ to­ significant improvements in key business processes, giving customers access to more intelligent and automated solutions. SAP Business AI is infused across the SAP product portfolio and every embedded scenario has gone through a rigorous AI ethics process.

Generative AI enables completely new capabilities in business software. With Generative AI, new content can be created, complex information can be summarized, computer code written, and more. It is a new generation of AI that can reason through business problems and make suggestions.

Note

More information about SAP Business AI strategy is available here: https://www.sap.com/products/artificial-intelligence.html

Key Terms in Artificial Intelligence

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI): a technology that equips machines with human-like capabilities, such as problem-solving, visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and language translation, seen in everyday applications like AI assistants and facial recognition software
  • Machine Learning (ML): a subset of AI that focuses on enabling computer systems to learn and improve from experience or data, incorporating elements from fields like computer science, statistics, and psychology
  • Deep Learning: a branch of machine learning that uses multilayered neural networks to analyze complex data patterns, and may employ different learning methods like supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning depending upon the task and available data
  • Generative AI (GenAI): Generative AI is a form of deep learning which utilizes foundation models, such as large language models, to create new content, which can include text, images, sound, and videos, based on the data they were trained on.
    • Foundation models: AI systems that use self-supervised learning on vast data to perform a variety of tasks, such as writing documents or creating images. Their versatility and adaptability make them a significant advancement in AI, lowering the barriers to adoption.
    • Large language models (LLMs): Large language models are a subcategory of foundation models that are used for text and computer code.

A good overview of these SAP Business AI capabilities can be found on the following learning journey: https://learning.sap.com/learning-journeys/exploring-the-sap-business-ai-portfolio

Joule and Succession AI Agents

Joule is the AI copilot that revolutionizes how you interact with your SAP business systems, making every touch-point count and every task simpler.

Joule offers conversational interactions between humans and computers to simplify access to information and automate business processes, thus improving both the employee and customer satisfaction. Joule can direct you to the right application to complete your tasks, help you to complete certain tasks, and find the information you're looking for quickly and easily.

Joule Agents

Joule Agents are AI agents embedded into every business function and accessed with role-based assistants. They use SAP’s process expertise to automate complex workflows and deliver AI value at scale. You can explore more details about Joule Assistants and Agents for SAP SuccessFactors with the following links:

The Succession Planning Agent revolutionizes succession by proactively evaluating the health of succession plans and providing recommendations to secure talent pipelines. The Succession Planning Agent is available* in Joule in SAP SuccessFactors and offers the following features:

  • Assess succession plan health and prioritize at-risk positions
  • Focus succession health insights on a specific part of the organization
  • Assist with successor nominations, including one-click nominations
  • Summarize prioritized action items for succession gaps
  • Identify positions with pending nomination approvals

Note

*IMPORTANT: At the time we published the 1H 2026 release content, this agent was planned but not yet generally available in the SAP SuccessFactors environment. Joule follows a different approach when it comes to release enhancements which differs from the SAP SuccessFactors release cycle. The latest information on Joule can be followed with this article: KBA 3604540-Joule in SuccessFactors Monthly Release

Joule Use Cases

Joule has many use cases available, with more being added monthly. The table below shows a sample of the Joule use cases available for Succession Management:

Joule Use Case Examples

ProductUse CaseDescription
SuccessionGo to Position TileDirects users to the Position Tile page.
SuccessionGo to Talent SearchDirects users to the Talent Search page.
SuccessionView Succession Org ChartDirects users to the Succession Org Chart page.
SuccessionView succession lineage chartDirects users to the Lineage Chart page.
SuccessionView performance-potential matrix grid reportDirects users to the Performance-Potential Matrix page.
SuccessionView how vs. what matrix grid reportDirects users to the How vs What Matrix page.
SuccessionView talent pool nominee approvalsAllows approvers to review a pending talent pool nominee.

Joule for Consultants

SAP Joule for Consultants is a Gen AI-powered copilot designed to boost consultant productivity by providing fast, reliable answers grounded in exclusive SAP content. It reduces rework by offering expert-level guidance that enhances design decisions and ensures alignment with best practices across project management, functional, and technical consulting.

Joule for Consultants draws from SAP's comprehensive knowledge base containing 18M+ pages of exclusive SAP documentation and training materials and leverages SAP's specialized fine-tuned ABAP model, trained on 300 million lines of ABAP code and 30 million lines of CDS code, to handle detailed code explanation and basic code generation. This extensive repository includes more than 9 terabytes of curated SAP knowledge content, 100+ SAP certifications, implementation guidance, product documentation, learning journeys, and insights from the SAP community.

Key Capabilities of Joule for Consultants

  • Enablement and Discovery: Provides comprehensive insights into the SAP domain by addressing questions related to product names, entity definitions, SAP concepts, programs, processes, and functional capabilities across the SAP portfolio.
  • Guidance and Instructions: Offers step-by-step support for achieving specific objectives, including setup, configuration, customization, and transformation of SAP systems and business processes across the SAP product suite.
  • Support and Troubleshooting: Delivers precise solutions for resolving functional issues or operational challenges within SAP systems and business processes across the SAP ecosystem.

AI Services Administration for Succession Management

Users can now take advantage of AI to assist them with their succession planning. There are some prerequisites required in order to use the Generative AI features in Succession Management:

  • SAP AI Units license
  • The following permission needs to be granted in Role-Based Permissions (RBP): Administrator Permissions→Manage AI Capabilities→AI Services Administration.

With these prerequisites, an administrator can navigate to AI Services Administration using Action Search, and enable the following AI features relevant to Succession Management:

  • Talent→Assisted Successor Insights: With this feature, succession planners can generate summaries and insights about all nominated successors for a position using generative AI capabilities.
  • Talent→Assisted Successor Recommendations: Allows users to view AI-suggested successors for a position based on Job Profile Builder, Talent Intelligence Hub, and Employee Central data.
  • Global Features→Assisted Writing: The AI-assisted writing tool is an interactive tool that uses Generative AI capabilities to assist employees with their writing tasks. While writing content in text and textarea fields within the SAP SuccessFactors applications, employees can leverage the features of the AI-assisted writing tool to enhance multiple aspects of their writing, such as clarity, conciseness, and tone. Additional Assisted Writing features that can be enabled are Translation and Text Analyzer (which searches for potential bias and removes harmful language).
The AI Services Administration Features Settings page is displayed.

Note

There are some other AI features that can be enabled from this tool that might be relevant for other SAP SuccessFactors solutions, such as SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Management, Employee Central, Talent Intelligence Hub, and Performance Goal Management. You can find out more information here: Premium AI Features in SAP SuccessFactors

Summary

  • SAP Business AI improves business outcomes by learning and automating processes, integrating across products, and adhering to ethical AI practices.
  • Generative AI enables new capabilities, including content creation, summarization, and business problem-solving using foundation and large language models (LLMs).
  • Joule simplifies interactions, automates processes, and supports tasks like evaluating the health of succession plans and providing recommendations to secure talent pipelines.
  • AI Services Administration enables features like Successor Insights, AI-Assisted Successor Recommendation, and Assisted Writing within Succession Management.
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