ORLANDO, Fla. – May 13, 2025: SAS, a global leader in analytics and artificial intelligence, has introduced its innovative agentic AI framework on the SAS Viya platform. This next-generation technology enables organizations to design, deploy, and manage AI agents with customizable levels of human-AI interaction, ensuring transparency and responsible decision-making.
The launch of SAS agentic AI was announced at SAS Innovate in Orlando, Florida, where business leaders, technical users, and partners, including Microsoft, Intel, and AWS, gathered to explore the latest advancements in data and AI.
SAS Agentic AI: Balancing Autonomy with Governance
SAS agentic AI is designed around three foundational pillars that ensure reliable, ethical, and secure AI deployment:
1. Decisioning: Precision and Reliability
SAS adopts a hybrid approach, combining deterministic analytics with the flexibility of large language models (LLMs). This approach allows organizations to build AI agents capable of delivering precise and reliable outcomes while maintaining essential business guardrails. In industries subject to regulatory compliance, these guardrails ensure that AI agents make decisions within predefined ethical and operational boundaries.
2. Human and AI Balance: Customizable Interaction
SAS empowers organizations to determine the appropriate balance between human oversight and AI autonomy for each agent. Depending on task complexity, risk, and strategic goals, AI agents can operate independently for routine tasks, while human oversight is provided for decisions that require ethical judgment or strategic direction.
3. Governance: Transparent and Accountable AI
SAS Viya’s built-in governance framework ensures that AI agents operate transparently and responsibly. The framework includes:
- Data Privacy Protection: Ensuring user data is handled securely.
- Ethical Compliance: Adhering to organizational values and industry standards.
- Auditable Decisions: Providing a clear record of AI decisions for accountability.
- Bias Detection and Mitigation: Identifying and addressing algorithmic biases.
Tiffany McCormick, Research Director at IDC, emphasized the importance of trust and governance in AI, noting that SAS is setting a high standard with its agentic AI approach.
“As organizations evolve toward open, interoperable AI ecosystems, trust and explainability in AI governance are critical. SAS is taking industry-leading steps to address this demand with its commitment to ethical rigor and transparent decision-making.”
SAS Viya: A Complete Platform for Agentic AI
SAS Viya serves as the foundation for agentic AI, supporting organizations throughout their AI journey — from data ingestion and analysis to building, deploying, and monitoring AI agents. Key features of SAS Viya for agentic AI include:
- Comprehensive Data Management: Collect, analyze, and prepare data for AI agents.
- Seamless Deployment: Design and deploy AI agents with just a few clicks.
- Continuous Monitoring: Track AI agent performance, detect biases, and ensure compliance.
- Secure Governance: Maintain transparency, ethical standards, and regulatory compliance.
Looking ahead, SAS plans to enhance SAS Viya with Co-Pilot productivity assistants, helping users work faster and smarter while adhering to enterprise logic. Additionally, SAS will offer pre-packaged, industry-specific AI agents designed to optimize workflows in sectors such as data engineering and supply chain management.
AI That Acts Responsibly and Decides Wisely
According to Marinela Profi, Global AI Market Strategy Lead at SAS, agentic AI on SAS Viya is not just about automation — it is about responsible decision-making.
“SAS Viya builds agents that don’t just act — they decide with purpose, guided by analytics, business rules, and adaptability. Our unified, governed, decision-first framework turns AI agents from a science experiment to a business differentiator.”
With SAS Viya’s agentic AI, organizations can confidently leverage AI to drive innovation, enhance decision-making, and maintain ethical standards.
