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Techday NZ
a day ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
SAS Viya unveils new AI tools & services to boost productivity
SAS has announced a series of updates and new features on its SAS Viya platform, aimed at enhancing AI-driven productivity and supporting a wider range of users and organisations. Platform updates The SAS Viya platform now provides users with the ability to either build AI through a suite of end-to-end tools or purchase AI solutions and model packages, offering increased flexibility and productivity for decision-making across industries. Kathy Lange, Research Director for AI Software at IDC, commented, "SAS is evolving its strategy and portfolio to embrace a broader ecosystem of user personas, preferences, and technologies within an enterprise's AI technology stack. SAS continues to develop offerings that streamline and automate the AI life cycle and enable organisations to make better business decisions faster." Key releases SAS Data Maker, first introduced through a private preview, is a synthetic data generator designed to help organisations address challenges related to data privacy and scarcity. The tool also aims to simplify data management processes and reduce resource usage. The development of SAS Data Maker was accelerated by SAS's recent acquisition of principal software assets from Hazy, a specialist in synthetic data. General availability for SAS Data Maker is expected in the third quarter of 2025. SAS Viya Intelligent Decisioning, which is currently available, offers organisations the ability to create and deploy intelligent AI agents with a controlled mix of AI autonomy and human involvement. According to SAS, this is intended to ensure appropriate oversight for tasks with varied complexity and risk profiles. Another new addition is SAS Managed Cloud Services: SAS Viya Essentials. This service packages selected SAS Viya products into an out-of-the-box managed cloud environment. Initially targeted at small and medium-sized businesses, SAS Managed Cloud Services: Viya Essentials is intended to reduce barriers to adopting AI solutions by providing an accessible hosted service. The SAS Viya Copilot, an AI-powered conversational assistant, is built into the SAS Viya platform to support developers, data scientists, and business users with analytical, business, and industry tasks. Currently available by invitation through a private preview, the general release is scheduled for the third quarter of 2025. The Copilot offers AI-powered assistance with model development and coding for SAS users. It is built on Azure AI Services, reflecting the ongoing partnership between SAS and Microsoft. SAS Viya Workbench, originally launched in 2024, is a cloud-based environment intended for developers, data scientists, and modellers. The workbench supports coding in SAS and Python via Visual Studio Code or Jupyter Notebook. Updates in 2025 include the addition of R language support, the integration of SAS Enterprise Guide as an optional development environment, and expanded availability to the Microsoft Azure Marketplace in addition to the existing AWS Marketplace. AI in practice SAS has reported that organisations using the Viya platform benefit from the ability to build and deploy AI models more efficiently. The platform's structure allows multiple job functions—including developers, data scientists, IT professionals, and business analysts—to collaborate throughout the data and AI life cycle. SAS suggests this collaboration streamlines the path to making informed business decisions and accelerates productivity across various sectors and regulatory contexts. Referencing industry research, SAS cited a 2024 AI productivity study by Futurum Group: "SAS Viya helps users accelerate the AI life cycle, enabling them to collect data, build models, and deploy decisions 4.6 times faster than selected competitors – all while helping them increase innovation, expedite decision making and drive revenue growth." "The current economic climate and rapid pace of AI innovation can feel intense and overwhelming," said Bryan Harris, Chief Technology Officer at SAS. "Our goal is to deliver cutting-edge AI capabilities that help organisations navigate the hype and disruption, make breakthroughs in problem solving, and gain a decision advantage." Real world usage SAS highlighted the use of its platform by Fathom Science, a start-up focused on marine data analytics. Fathom Science used SAS Data Maker to generate synthetic shipping lane data, expanding their dataset to 500,000 points, in order to validate a model designed to predict whale locations and reduce the risk of vessel strikes on critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. SAS Viya Workbench was used subsequently to develop machine learning models for calculating the probability of whales' proximity to shore, assisting with statistical and machine learning validation of the location prediction model. SAS stated that through these enhancements, the Viya platform aims to support a diverse range of users in addressing real business and environmental challenges efficiently with AI-driven solutions.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
From synthetic data to AI agents, new SAS Viya innovations boost speed, productivity and trust
SAS Viya Workbench – Released in 2024, SAS Viya Workbench is a cloud-based coding environment purpose-built for developers, data scientists, and modelers to significantly improve speed and efficiency and easily conduct data management, analysis, and model development using SAS or Python code, through Visual Studio Code or Jupyter Notebook. New in 2025 is the support of R coding, SAS Enterprise Guide as an optional integrated development environment (IDE) option, and the expansion from the initial availability on AWS Marketplace to now include availability on Microsoft Azure Marketplace. SAS Viya Copilot – Built on Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, SAS Viya Copilot is an AI-driven conversational assistant embedded directly into the SAS Viya platform that gives developers, data scientists and business users alike a powerful personal assistant that accelerates analytical, business and industry tasks. SAS Viya Copilot is currently available via an invitation-only, private preview, with the general availability release coming in the third quarter of 2025. Key features of the initial Copilot offering include AI-powered model development and code assistance for SAS users. SAS Managed Cloud Services: SAS Viya Essentials – A packaged Managed Cloud Services offering of select SAS Viya products, SAS Managed Cloud Services: SAS Viya Essentials was launched in early 2025. Currently targeted to small and mid-size businesses, SAS Managed Cloud Services: Viya Essentials reduces the barrier to entry, delivering SAS Viya in a small, out-of-the box hosted managed service. SAS Viya Intelligent Decisioning – Available now, SAS Viya Intelligent Decisioning facilitates building and deploying intelligent AI agents with just the right AI-autonomy-to-human-involvement ratio to strike the optimal oversight balance for task complexity, risk and business goals. SAS Data Maker – Introduced through private preview last year, SAS' secure synthetic data generator helps organizations tackle data privacy and scarcity challenges, while simplifying processes and conserving resources. Accelerated through SAS' recent acquisition of synthetic data pioneer Hazy's principal software assets, SAS Data Maker is expected for general availability in the third quarter of 2025. "SAS is evolving its strategy and portfolio to embrace a broader ecosystem of user personas, preferences, and technologies within an enterprise's AI technology stack," said Kathy Lange, research director for AI Software at IDC. "SAS continues to develop offerings that streamline and automate the AI life cycle and enable organizations to make better business decisions faster." ORLANDO, Fla., May 7, 2025 /CNW/ -- SAS Innovate -- Data and AI leader SAS today announced its latest offerings on the SAS ® Viya ® platform, spanning the latest leaps in AI advancement to scale and galvanize human productivity and decision-making. Story Continues Learn more about SAS data and AI products at: Unparalleled productivity, trusted results SAS is breaking through the AI and GenAI hype to deliver real capabilities that drive real results with SAS Viya – a comprehensive data and AI platform that empowers people of all skill levels to participate in the analytics process. The SAS Viya platform delivers users a choice to be a builder of AI with end-to-end platform tools, or buyers of AI solutions and model packages – each delivering scale and productivity to enable better decisions and faster time to value. Developers, data scientists, IT professionals and business analysts can collaborate seamlessly within the SAS Viya ecosystem and throughout the data and AI life cycle to make intelligent decisions. SAS Viya accelerates productivity across diverse industries and regulatory landscapes, offering a clear advantage to organizations, particularly CIOs and IT leaders. In fact, a 2024 Futurum Group AI productivity study revealed that SAS Viya helps users accelerate the AI life cycle, enabling them to collect data, build models, and deploy decisions 4.6 times faster than selected competitors – all while helping them increase innovation, expedite decision making and drive revenue growth. "The current economic climate and rapid pace of AI innovation can feel intense and overwhelming," said Bryan Harris, Chief Technology Officer at SAS. "Our goal is to deliver cutting-edge AI capabilities that help organizations navigate the hype and disruption, make breakthroughs in problem solving, and gain a decision advantage." Supporting global conservation with data and AI The power of SAS Viya extends beyond improving business outcomes to boosting global conservation efforts. Fathom Science, a technology start-up building digital twins of the ocean, tapped SAS Viya to tackle an impractical problem that brought together the unlikely combination of ocean data, AI and a species in need of a lifeline. To validate their state-of-the-science whale location prediction model that helps prevent vessels from striking critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, Fathom Science used SAS Data Maker to create synthetic data with the characteristics of the actual shipping lane data to expand to 500,000 data points. With the data in hand, SAS Viya Workbench was used to develop models to calculate the probability of whales' distance from shore. The result? Fathom Science gained statistical and machine learning validation of its whale location prediction model. Today's announcement was made at SAS Innovate, the data and AI experience for business leaders, technical users and SAS Partners. Keep up with the latest news from SAS by visiting or follow us on LinkedIn or X. About SAS SAS is a global leader in data and AI. With SAS software and industry-specific solutions, organizations transform data into trusted decisions. SAS gives you THE POWER TO KNOW®. SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright © 2025 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. Editorial Contact: Jennifer James 919-531-0858 Cision View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE SAS Cision View original content to download multimedia:
Techday NZ
07-05-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
SAS Viya expands AI tools with new offerings & cloud services
SAS has unveiled several new offerings on its SAS Viya platform aimed at supporting greater speed, productivity, and trust in AI deployment and analytics. The latest additions to SAS Viya include the forthcoming SAS Data Maker, a synthetic data generator intended to tackle data privacy and scarcity issues within organisations. According to SAS, this solution builds on technology acquired from Hazy's principal software assets and is expected to be generally available in the third quarter of 2025. Currently available is SAS Viya Intelligent Decisioning, which allows users to construct and deploy intelligent AI agents designed to provide an appropriate balance between machine autonomy and human oversight, taking into account task complexity, risk profiles, and business objectives. SAS has also launched SAS Managed Cloud Services: SAS Viya Essentials, a managed service package primarily aimed at small and mid-sized businesses. The company says that Viya Essentials delivers the SAS Viya experience in a compact, hosted and managed service arrangement to help reduce barriers to entry for organisations seeking to implement analytics capabilities. SAS Viya Copilot, an AI-powered conversational assistant, is currently in private preview with general availability expected in the third quarter of 2025. According to SAS, the Copilot will provide assistance to developers, data scientists, and business users, enabling AI-powered model development and code support. It is built on Azure AI Services and is described as a significant outcome of the SAS and Microsoft partnership. Another recent release is SAS Viya Workbench, which offers a cloud environment for coding aimed at enhancing the speed and efficiency of developers, data scientists, and modelers. Workbench facilitates data management, analysis, and model development using SAS or Python code and integrates with Visual Studio Code or Jupyter Notebook. For 2025, Workbench adds support for R coding, SAS Enterprise Guide as an IDE option, and is expanding its availability from AWS Marketplace to the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Kathy Lange, Research Director for AI Software at IDC, commented on the company's direction: "SAS is evolving its strategy and portfolio to embrace a broader ecosystem of user personas, preferences, and technologies within an enterprise's AI technology stack. SAS continues to develop offerings that streamline and automate the AI life cycle and enable organisations to make better business decisions faster." SAS highlighted a recent AI productivity study conducted by the Futurum Group in 2024, which reported that SAS Viya users were able to accelerate their AI life cycle by collecting data, building models, and deploying decisions 4.6 times faster than selected competitors. The study also found increased innovation, faster decision making, and revenue growth for users. Bryan Harris, Chief Technology Officer at SAS, addressed the pace of change in the AI sector by saying, "The current economic climate and rapid pace of AI innovation can feel intense and overwhelming. Our goal is to deliver cutting-edge AI capabilities that help organisations navigate the hype and disruption, make breakthroughs in problem solving, and gain a decision advantage." SAS also pointed to the role its technology is playing beyond commercial applications. Fathom Science, a start-up focused on creating digital twins of the ocean, used SAS Viya to address marine conservation concerns. By employing SAS Data Maker, Fathom Science generated synthetic shipping lane data to aid in the validation of its whale location prediction model, which is designed to reduce the risk of vessels striking critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. The process involved expanding available data points and utilising SAS Viya Workbench to develop machine learning models for estimating whale proximity to shore, leading to statistical and machine learning validation of their approach.
The Guardian
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
New Order review – classics front and centre, but electronic pop pioneers can still surprise
Who would have thought that a promising band named Joy Division, having lost their seemingly irreplaceably brilliant frontman, Ian Curtis, in 1980, would regenerate almost immediately into New Order – to become the forebears of the electronic pop movement, achieve mainstream global success and still be doing it 45 years later? As a sea of fans slowly put aside their pints and made their way into Perth's RAC Arena on Wednesday night, local indie success story Great Gable opened proceedings. Their at times psychedelic shoegazey alt-rock may have seemed an unusual choice on this occasion, but they passed the acid test – from their oldest song, Drift, to their newest single, Hazy – by attracting dancers before a performance by one of the world's most danceable groups, receiving a sincerely warm reception by set's end. Vocalist/guitarist Alex Whiteman proclaimed amazement at having landed the slot but, with several European tours already up their sleeve, this evening was simply another step on the way up for this Perth band. The origins and history of New Order are well known and loved, and certainly were front and centre at the opening show of their Australian tour. A packed venue bristled with predominantly middle-aged enthusiasm – although there were a pleasing number of late-teens and 20-somethings – as the lights dimmed and the opening of Wagner's Das Rheingold soundtracked a video sequence of slow-motion high divers descending into the waters below, a visual theme etched from New Order's 2017 live album, Nomc15. It was an eerie introduction, broken somewhat as the band casually sauntered onstage with vocalist/guitarist Bernard Sumner saying: 'Hello Perth, city of friendly people … so far, anyway. It's a nice city, here we go.' The dynamic immediately changed again as the band crashed into Joy Division's debut single, Transmission, drummer Stephen Morris leading the freneticism of the 1979 anthem. New Order are thought of in terms of pop/dance music and synths, but it's tougher stuff than that. The warm welcome from the crowd was reciprocated with the rough-hewn pop of Crystal, the band bathed in shades of purple, blue and red. The even sweeter Age Of Consent (from 1983's Power, Corruption & Lies) featured a long line of excellent guitar interplay between Sumner and guitarist Phil Cunningham (who also shined on the breezy stomper Be A Rebel), but the mood changed again with another Joy Division offering, Isolation, and a never-before-performed B-side, Player In The League, making its live debut. It just goes to show that for all their known and popular history New Order are happy to twist the melon when they want. Eighties dancefloor hit Bizarre Love Triangle arrived unannounced but when the main keyboard line came in from Gillian Gilbert the love came out and suddenly thousands of phones lit up the arena. It was the dance that everyone seemed to be waiting for, even if it was somewhat squishy on the floor. It segued immediately into 1989's Vanishing Point, a classic New Order offering seemingly drawing from Jean-Michel Jarre, with bassist Tom Chapman getting all the hooks right (and so much more) while lasers shot into the back of the venue as it pulsated like the days of yore at Manchester's Haçienda club. Sumner gave thanks to a local dentist who had seen him during the band's Perth stay – 'You've got really great dentists!' – before 1987's True Faith, another fan favourite, which was accompanied by footage from the original music video, a happy reminder of the visual quirks of that decade now long gone. The intro of Blue Monday – the highest selling 12-inch single of all time – brought tangible excitement from the get-go. Perhaps the finest combination of beat and bass ever laid down on tape, it feels iconic just witnessing it being performed. On the home stretch, Temptation set the arena alight in a mirrorball swirl; New Order then ended as they had begun, with a salute to their beginnings, as the words 'Forever Joy Division' were displayed on the video screen along with footage of Curtis performing 1980's Decades. They finished with a heartfelt rendering of the now hymn-like Love Will Tear Us Apart. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion The history was undeniable and indeed the joy was writ large. New Order are still a force for the ages. New Order's Australian tour continues through March
