Many companies have begun using AI and analytics to optimise their business, manage risk, fight fraud, and enhance customer relationships, amongst others. Even so, there are still significant challenges to putting AI into practice and generating trustworthy insights.

Delegates from across the Middle East, Türkiye and Africa (META) region at the SAS Innovate On Tour Istanbul, held 21-22 May 2024, got access to unique insights on learning how to build value with AI. This flagship annual event is a comprehensive data and AI experience for business leaders, technical users, and SAS partners. It featured presentations from those businesses using AI and analytics today to transform their environments to enhance customer relationships and combat fraud more effectively.

“SAS Innovate On Tour Istanbul provided delegates with comprehensive workshops for applying AI to their organisations. Showcasing the latest data and AI technologies from SAS and our partners provided the insights essential for decision-makers to understand how best to succeed with data and AI,” says Essie Mokgonyana, SAS Country Manager & Sales Director for South Africa.

SAS Innovate On Tour Istanbul featured industry-specific solutions in the SAS Innovation Hub, as well as industry-focused presentations during the two-day event. Spotlighted industries include banking, education, government, healthcare, insurance, life sciences, manufacturing, retail/CPG, and telecom. The SAS Innovation Hub provided delegates with access to demos and numerous networking opportunities. The hub put the spotlight on SAS^® Viya^® – SAS’ massively parallel data and AI platform – along with data management, advanced analytics, and industry-specific solutions.

There were several insightful keynote discussions during the two days on topics ranging from generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to advanced analytics to SAS Viya migration use cases, as well as multiple practical sessions that focused on the importance of trustworthy AI, how to reimagine the customer experience, and how to develop analytical leadership in modern businesses.

“SAS shared its technology vision for the future and highlighted our specific areas of focus in the data and AI category. Moreover, there was significant focus given to the business value of more productive data and AI. It comes down to helping customers get more done, realising more value, and driving better outcomes,” says Mokgonyana.

Dietz Meiring, Chief Information Officer of JD Group, said: “SAS Innovate On Tour Istanbul was an invaluable event for establishing key relationships and forming strong partnerships. The event conveyed SAS’ vision for, and ability to execute, leading edge data and AI capabilities, all whilst solving their customers’ most pertinent problems.”

One of the critical and much anticipated discussion points at the event centred on GenAI innovations beyond the market hype and explored putting AI into practice for generating trustworthy insights.

“To this end, we focused on benefitting from productivity and performance from AI systems that are built on a trustworthy platform. Delegates saw the SAS Viya, the most trustworthy AI platform in the market, in action and gained valuable insights from how to integrate it within their environments,” concluded Mokgonyana.

SAS Innovate On Tour Istanbul was presented by SAS in partnership with Intel, Microsoft and Redington.