AI is changing how businesses interact with their data. Instead of static reports, companies want to ask questions and get actionable insights directly from their SAP systems. But connecting AI to sensitive business data comes with security and compliance challenges. During a recent industry presentation, Cas Criel and Nico Deleener from Flexso introduced Flexso Cortex, a platform that enables developers to build secure AI agents on top of SAP data.
For years, extracting data from SAP for advanced analytics and AI has been a topic for which each customers has their own strategy. Cas Criel, a specialist on the Flexso analytics team, pointed out a major issue with traditional workarounds. If you simply dump SAP data into a generic data lake, not only is it not allowed by SAP policy (making it non-compliant), it strips away its context. You lose the crucial "SAP semantics," which makes training smart AI models nearly impossible. The real challenge is not just moving the data, but doing so in a way that keeps it secure, compliant, and actually useful.
Today, executives want what is known as conversational analytics. Instead of clicking through complex dashboards, a Chief Revenue Officer might want to ask a simple question about quarterly sales figures and get an instant, accurate response. They might even want to drill down into specific regions or take direct action inside the database. This shift from rigid screens to conversational insights is where Flexso Cortex comes in, offering a new way to interact with core business information.
So, how does this integration actually work under the hood? Nico Deleener, a technical architect at Flexso Digital, explained that Cortex is a SaaS platform hosted by Flexso, and available on the SAP store. The platform gives companies a secure and self-service way to not only access their SAP data, but actually build their unique organisations semantic contex layer on top of it. By doing so, providing added-value to their custom AI agent workflows.
The two biggest hurdles are security and compliancy, particularly when dealing with 'on behalf of' processing and mass data extraction. For this Cortex leverages a best practice setup on the SAP technical platform to support secure 'named user' access. When looking at mass data extraction for reporting use cases, Cortex relies on SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) to act as a smart data processor. BDC does not just check compliance boxes; it brings data processing to where it belongs, the data layer, not the AI layer. It aggregates data and runs complex calculations before the AI ever sees it. This drastically reduces token costs, which can spiral out of control when feeding raw datasets into LLMs, while boosting overall performance.
Cortex is built to handle both operational and analytical types of tasks, supporting multiple SAP solutions (like S4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors, ..). It manages analytical questions, like comparing year-over-year revenue, by translating natural language into efficient BDC queries. Second, it handles operational tasks, such as canceling a sales order, by triggering actions directly inside the SAP system. It is a dual approach that delivers both insight and immediate action.
Looking at the broader landscape, the discussion touched on how Flexso Cortex fits into the wider enterprise ecosystem. Nico made it clear that pulling raw SAP data straight into generic storage is a major compliance risk for most companies. Instead, the industry is moving toward smart extraction through BDC or delta-sharing partnerships with platforms like Databricks and Snowflake.
When it comes to the AI layer, the future belongs to agent-to-agent communication. This involves systems like Microsoft Copilot talking to SAP's Joule assistant, or connecting tools directly through Cortex's Model Context Protocol (MCP).
David Pierre, AI practice lead & partner at Flexso, highlighted that success in this space requires deep collaboration. Flexso plans to pair its deep SAP expertise with partners who specialize in building custom AI agents. This collaborative model ensures businesses can deploy robust, secure AI architectures without compromising on data integrity or compliance.
Flexso Cortex provides a practical, powerful way to bring AI into the SAP ecosystem. By focusing on security, compliance, and cost efficiency, the platform helps businesses transition from rigid, outdated reporting to flexible conversational analytics. Ultimately, it makes enterprise data more accessible and actionable, giving AI agents the tools and context they need to do real work.
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