SAS Shares Internal GenAI Lessons as Employees Build More Than 4,200 AI Agents

Long-established data analytics and enterprise software company SAS is moving generative AI beyond proofs of concept and into daily operations, including system maintenance, internal knowledge searches and software development. The case shows how large companies are not only purchasing tools but also allowing employees to build their own AI agents while measuring the value of adoption against performance and cost.

SAS's CIO recently disclosed that the company has deployed 5,000 Microsoft Copilot licenses internally and that employees have independently created more than 4,200 AI agents. SAS has also adopted AI Coding on a large scale, gradually shifting engineers from writing code directly to iterating on, reviewing and validating AI-generated output. The disclosures did not specify an exact date or purchase price.