SAS’s 50-Year Journey: Turning AI into a Practical Tool for Business

<h2>Introduction: AI as a Means, Not an End</h2> <p>At SAS Innovate 2026, held in Grapevine, Texas, the 50-year-old privately held analytics company made clear that while artificial intelligence is central to its strategy, it is never the star of the show. Instead, the focus remains on solving real business problems. “To us, it’s just a tool,” said Udo Sglavo, SAS’s VP of applied AI and modeling, reflecting a philosophy that has guided the company since its founding in the 1970s.</p><figure style="margin:20px 0"><img src="https://cdn.thenewstack.io/media/2026/05/66c6c572-a-c-qqvg560p-r4-unsplash-1024x586.jpg" alt="SAS’s 50-Year Journey: Turning AI into a Practical Tool for Business" style="width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:8px" loading="lazy"><figcaption style="font-size:12px;color:#666;margin-top:5px">Source: thenewstack.io</figcaption></figure> <h2>The Core Message: Every Breakthrough Fades into the Background</h2> <p>In his keynote, SAS CTO Bryan Harris drew a parallel between AI and previous transformative technologies. “Every breakthrough technology follows the same arc: it solves a problem, it reshapes society, and eventually it fades into the background of everyday life,” Harris remarked. He noted that the internet was once the new, shiny thing, and now it’s simply infrastructure. AI, he argued, is no different. “The only thing that outlasts every innovation is people.”</p> <p>This perspective shaped the conversations and announcements at the event. SAS demonstrated <strong>agentic workflows</strong>, <strong>digital twins built with Unreal Engine</strong>, and <strong>quantum computing efforts</strong>—but always in the context of answering a specific business question, not as standalone tech showcases.</p> <h2>A Philosophy Rooted in the 1970s</h2> <p>Sglavo traces the company’s tool-first mindset back to its origins. SAS began as a project analyzing agricultural data at North Carolina State University. “SAS has made really good progress for 50 years by focusing on domain questions,” he explained. “It was not about creating the technology. It was really about, ‘Can we solve a specific business question, industry question?’”</p> <p>When large language models burst onto the scene, SAS deliberately chose not to build its own, unlike some competitors. Instead, it adopted what Sglavo calls an “agnostic technology” approach. “AI will change again. We will see different waves of different AI techniques coming in,” he said. “And we will always say, ‘Look, it doesn’t matter to us.’ To us, it’s just a tool that we are using to solve the problem.”</p> <h3>Neutrality as a Long-Standing Principle</h3> <p>This neutrality is not new. As Harris outlined in his keynote, it has been a core part of SAS’s offering for decades. In the 1980s, the company’s <strong>multi-vendor architecture</strong> allowed its software to run on mainframes, Unix, and PCs. When cloud computing arrived, SAS adopted a <strong>multi-cloud architecture</strong> that works across AWS, GCP, and on-premises environments. Now, the company is embracing a “multi-large language model type of environment,” as Sglavo puts it.</p> <p>“When we go to a German insurance company, and they are a Microsoft shop, we can’t come in and say, ‘We want you to use this large language model,’” Sglavo explains. “They’ve already made their technology choices. Our job is to fit into their world, not force ours.”</p> <h2>How SAS Sells AI to the Fortune 500</h2> <p>For SAS, selling AI means first understanding the customer’s domain. The pitch is never about the capabilities of a particular model or algorithm. Instead, it’s about how that tool can answer a pressing business question. SAS’s sales and consulting teams work with clients across industries—insurance, banking, retail, healthcare—to identify where AI can provide measurable value.</p><figure style="margin:20px 0"><img src="https://cdn.thenewstack.io/media/2026/05/66c6c572-a-c-qqvg560p-r4-unsplash-scaled.jpg" alt="SAS’s 50-Year Journey: Turning AI into a Practical Tool for Business" style="width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:8px" loading="lazy"><figcaption style="font-size:12px;color:#666;margin-top:5px">Source: thenewstack.io</figcaption></figure> <p>This approach resonates with Fortune 500 companies that are weary of overhyped tech. By positioning AI as merely one feature among many—alongside optimization, machine learning, computer vision, and forecasting—SAS eases the adoption process. Customers don’t need to rethink their entire IT stack or hire an army of AI experts; they can integrate AI into existing workflows.</p> <h3>Demonstrations at SAS Innovate 2026</h3> <p>At the event, SAS showcased how these principles come to life. One notable example was a digital twin of a smart city, built with <strong>Unreal Engine</strong>, used to simulate traffic flows and emergency response scenarios. Another was an <strong>agentic workflow</strong> that automatically adjusts supply chain decisions based on real-time disruptions. In both cases, AI was invisible—tucked inside the solution, working quietly in the background.</p> <p>Harris also highlighted SAS’s work in <strong>quantum computing</strong>, but again, the emphasis was on practical applications: solving complex optimization problems that classical computers struggle with. “We don’t talk about quantum for the sake of quantum,” he said. “We talk about how it can help a logistics company save millions or a pharmaceutical company discover new drugs faster.”</p> <h2>Looking Ahead: AI as the New “Fading” Technology</h2> <p>As AI continues to evolve, SAS is betting that its agnostic, tool-centric approach will keep it relevant. The company is investing in <strong>large language model interoperability</strong>, allowing customers to switch between models from OpenAI, Anthropic, or open-source alternatives without rewriting their applications. This flexibility is a direct extension of the multi-vendor and multi-cloud strategies that have served SAS for decades.</p> <p>“The next wave of AI will be about <strong>orchestrating multiple specialized models</strong> to solve complex tasks,” Sglavo predicted. “SAS will be the platform that lets enterprises do that without being locked into any one vendor.”</p> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>SA’s message to the Fortune 500 is straightforward: don’t fall in love with the technology; fall in love with the problem. By treating AI as just another tool—like the internet before it—SAS aims to help customers achieve lasting value without the distraction of hype. For a 50-year-old company, this philosophy has proven remarkably durable, and it shows no signs of fading away.</p>