SAS unveils AI agents with customizable human-AI interaction for transparent decisioning

SAS Viya's agentic AI framework with built-in governance helps organizations create purpose-built AI agents that fuel trusted decisions

ORLANDO, Fla., May 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- SAS INNOVATE -- Imagine a future where AI systems render decisions and take action with little to no human intervention. With the rapid advance of AI agents that future is nearly here.  That's why SAS is building the agentic AI future on its bedrock of responsible innovation. SAS^® Intelligent Decisioning – available on industry-leading data and AI platform SAS^® Viya^® – empowers organizations to design, deploy and scale AI agents with balanced human and AI autonomy, embedded governance and explainability of decisions.

"SAS' approach to agentic AI strikes the critical balance between autonomous decision-making and ethical governance," said Nick Patience, Vice President and Practice Lead, Artificial Intelligence Software and Tools at The Futurum Group. "Its intelligent agents represent not just technological advancement but a pragmatic framework for responsible enterprise AI adoption – precisely what organizations need as they navigate this rapidly evolving landscape to gain a competitive advantage."

AI agents get decisioning support with ethical calibration

True enterprise value from agentic AI comes from building collaborative, intelligence-amplifying systems that work with humans. SAS Viya's agentic AI framework is underpinned by three pillars that define how AI agents are designed and delivered: 

1. Decisioning. Applying a hybrid approach that combines the rigor of powerful deterministic analytics with the flexibility and reasoning of large language models (LLMs) enables customers to build AI agents that deliver precise and reliable outcomes, with the necessary business guardrails and rules required in regulated industries.
2. Human and AI balance. SAS enables organizations to determine the appropriate level of AI autonomy and human involvement for AI agents based on task complexity, risk, and business goals. AI agents can operate fully autonomously in routine, data-driven tasks while humans provide oversight, ethical judgment, and strategic direction.
3. Governance. SAS' built-in governance framework enables customers to build AI agents that not only deliver accurate outcomes but also adhere to ethical standards, maintain data privacy, align with business values and stand up to regulatory scrutiny.

"As organizations evolve toward open, interoperable AI ecosystems across multi-cloud and hybrid environments, trust and explainability in AI governance are emerging as key differentiators among tech vendors," said Tiffany McCormick, Research Director, Digital Business Models and Monetization at IDC. "SAS is taking industry-leading steps to address the growing demand for agentic AI, with a clear commitment to ethical rigor and differentiated execution in AI decisioning."

The future of agentic AI, powered by SAS Viya
SAS Viya supports organizations through every stage of the agentic AI journey, from data ingestion and analysis to building, deploying and monitoring AI agents. It enables continuous performance tracking, governance and security, offering a comprehensive and streamlined approach to managing AI agents throughout their lifecycle. And SAS brings decades of trusted governance to the table, embedding auditability, bias detection and compliance into every agent.

SAS' future agentic AI roadmap includes infusing co-pilot productivity assistants into SAS Viya to help users work faster, smarter and with fewer manual steps, while staying grounded in enterprise logic. Leaning into its deep industry expertise, SAS also plans to deliver pre-packaged, domain-specific intelligent agents that will integrate seamlessly into industry workflows (e.g., data engineering tasks, optimizing supply chains), helping organizations accelerate time-to-value without sacrificing control or confidence. 

"SAS Viya builds agents that don't just act – they decide with purpose, guided by analytics, business rules and adaptability and grounded by decades of SAS' trusted governance," said Marinela Profi, Global AI Market Strategy Lead at SAS. "SAS' unified, governed, decision-first framework turns AI agents from a science experiment to a business differentiator."

Learn more about AI agents with SAS at: https://www.sas.com/en_us/solutions/ai/agentic-ai.html.

Today's announcement was made at SAS Innovate, the data and AI experience for business leaders, technical users and SAS Partners. This year's event is supported by our partner sponsors, including Microsoft, Intel and AWS. 

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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 Contacts:
Jennifer James
jennifer.james@sas.com

Danielle Bates
danielle.bates@sas.com

SOURCE SAS