On January 15, 2026, SAP held a webinar to provide an update on its Business Intelligence roadmap. Between cloud innovations, renewed commitment to BusinessObjects, and recognition of partners’ key role in AI innovation, here are the announcements that will shape your analytics strategy for years to come.
A Key Update for the BI Ecosystem
During this webinar,
For the thousands of companies that rely daily on SAP BusinessObjects, this update was an opportunity to understand where SAP is investing — and how to prepare their own evolution.
SAP Business Data Cloud: Understanding SAP’s Global Strategy
Before diving into product details, Eric Fenollosa set the strategic context. Business Data Cloud is now the brand under which SAP presents its entire data stack, including front-end tools.
Business Data Cloud first represents a repackaging of existing solutions: SAP Analytics Cloud for BI and planning, SAP Datasphere as the successor to Business Warehouse, and BW itself. The offering also includes partnerships with Databricks and Snowflake.
But beyond packaging, it’s the notion of Data Product that constitutes the real innovation — a layer where all data is unified independently from underlying systems, with harmonized data models. The goal: enable artificial intelligence at enterprise scale.
SAP Analytics Cloud: AI Takes Center Stage
SAP Analytics Cloud remains a central pillar of this strategy, with continued heavy investment from SAP.
Among Q4 2025 innovations, AI takes center stage with features in beta release: integration of Joule (SAP’s AI assistant), AI-assisted code generation, and story generation through natural language prompts.
The My Metrics feature also stands out, allowing users to create metric lists, trace back to original creation points, share with colleagues, and set up alerts.
Future Investment Areas
Three major priorities emerged for SAP Analytics Cloud:
SAP Integration and Composable Analytics: A new technological stack enabling SAP Analytics Cloud components to be embedded in other applications.
Enterprise Maturity: Eric Fenollosa used a telling analogy — BusinessObjects is a “grown adult” while SAC is “still an adolescent which just turned 10 years old.” SAP acknowledges the need to continue improving scalability and core BI features.
Live Connectivity to Non-SAP Data: Extending SAC’s strong SAP data connectivity to third-party sources.
SAP BusinessObjects: The Three Key Differentiators
Eric Fenollosa clearly articulated BusinessObjects’ positioning versus SAP Analytics Cloud around three axes.
“BusinessObjects is a grown adult — mature, stable, and reliable. SAP Analytics Cloud is still an adolescent. Both have their place in our portfolio, addressing different customer needs.”
— Eric Fenollosa
1. Data Source Agnosticism
Being data source agnostic has been BusinessObjects’ DNA from day one — and remains so. Importantly, as customers migrate to Business Data Cloud, BusinessObjects will remain a “first-class citizen” for analyzing that data.
2. Enterprise Reporting Use Cases
Two families where BusinessObjects excels: pixel-perfect dashboards and high-volume distribution — refreshing and distributing thousands of PDFs overnight. This is BusinessObjects’ core strength, not SAP Analytics Cloud’s.
3. On-Premise Deployment
Only BusinessObjects is available on-premise. SAP Analytics Cloud is exclusively a cloud SaaS solution.
A Roadmap Through 2032 and Beyond
End of BI 4.3 Mainstream Support
BI 4.3 will reach end of mainstream maintenance at the end of 2026. Planning an upgrade to the latest version is now essential.
Customer Specific Maintenance for All
Good news: all supported versions starting with 4.3 now benefit from Customer Specific Maintenance. Customers can choose to stay on 4.3 beyond 2027 — support tickets will still be handled, though no new fixes will be delivered.
An Adapted Delivery Pace
SAP is moving from annual support packages to biennial major versions. BI 2025 is available now, BI 2027 comes next year. Between major versions, patches are delivered every 6 weeks (year 1) then every 8 weeks.
Seven-Year Visibility
The roadmap now provides seven years of visibility. BI 2029 is the latest announced version, but SAP commits to delivering new versions as long as customers need them. The BI20XX code line will be maintained at least until 2032.
Portfolio Rationalization: Prepare Your Migrations
Several components are not available in BI 2025 and beyond: Lumira Discovery, Crystal Reports for Enterprise, Analysis for OLAP, Live Office, and UNV universes.
SAP’s goal is to rationalize and focus investment on the most widely adopted tools. The most critical migration effort concerns UNV to UNX conversion — this must be planned before leaving BI 4.3.
Web Intelligence: Heading Toward Dashboarding
Gregory Botticchio presented the BI 2027 innovations for Web Intelligence:
“With BI 2027, Web Intelligence is transforming into a true dashboarding solution while preserving what makes it unique: the power of ad-hoc analysis combined with enterprise-grade reporting.”
— Gregory Botticchio
New chart interactivities, expanded sharing capabilities outside the BusinessObjects platform (WIDX format), and improved report creation experience for easier adoption.
BI 2025 New Features
- New SAP UI5 widgets: filters, tables, show/hide
- Custom layouts: 16/9, 4/3, mobile
- Custom Tooltips
- Export to WIDX (Web Intelligence Document eXtract)
- Simplified data creation workflow
BI 2027 Evolutions
- Enhanced widget interactivities (Filter in place, Variance, advanced Tooltips)
- New dashboard widgets: charts, containers, custom widgets
- Application widgets for BI Workspace and Landing Page
- Responsive Layout
- Guided Dashboard creation
- Theme and template creation
AI in BusinessObjects: SAP’s Strategy Explained
Eric Fenollosa made a major strategic announcement: SAP will not deliver AI features out of the box in BusinessObjects.
The reason is clear: AI technology evolves so quickly that developing features for on-premise deployment in 3-5 years doesn’t make sense. In SaaS environments, new features can be deployed quarterly — not so with on-premise software.
A Clear Partner Openness Strategy
Rather than leaving customers without options, SAP has chosen a deliberate strategy of openness. Eric Fenollosa explained:
“So our strategy is to be open so that partners — starting with Need4Viz — can build their own solutions. The chance we have is that we have a super rich SDK with BusinessObjects which allows partners to build their solutions and to really improve and build AI in our tools.”
— Eric Fenollosa
This statement is significant: SAP explicitly names Need4Viz as the first example of their partner strategy, and acknowledges that the BusinessObjects SDK enables partners to deliver AI capabilities that SAP itself won’t build natively.
N4V FOR WEBI: When SAP Recognizes Partner Excellence
It was in the final minutes of the webinar that Eric Fenollosa went even further in his recognition of the partnership:
“We are again super happy to have a partner like Need4Viz who really delivers extensions and extends really the value of our product, specifically Web Intelligence. There are several areas where we don’t need to invest too much on our side because they are doing such a fantastic job — such as widgets and maps. And obviously intelligence, where we are not planning to do anything on our side when it comes to artificial intelligence.”
— Eric Fenollosa
N4V Widgets: 60+ Interactive Visualizations
N4V Widgets brings over 60 interactive, customizable, and drillable widgets to Web Intelligence. From advanced charts to specialized visualizations, these widgets transform standard WebI reports into modern, engaging dashboards — without leaving the BusinessObjects environment.
N4V Maps: A Full GIS System Within WebI
N4V Maps integrates a complete Geographic Information System directly into Web Intelligence. Visualize your data on interactive maps, analyze geographic trends, and add a spatial dimension to your reports — all natively within WebI.
N4V Publisher: Your WebI Reports, Everywhere
N4V Publisher lets you share your Web Intelligence reports outside the BusinessObjects platform. Your reports remain up-to-date, dynamic, and responsive — accessible to users who don’t have access to the BI platform, on any device.
N4V Intelligence: “Webi just got a brAIn!”
Eric Fenollosa concluded by highlighting the three AI capabilities where Need4Viz excels:
“Our friends have done a really great job when it comes to natural language query, chart recommender, and time series forecasting.”
— Eric Fenollosa
These three capabilities form the core of N4V Intelligence:
Natural Language Query: Simply describe what you’re looking for in natural language, and AI automatically generates the corresponding WebI query. No need to master universe structure to access your data.
Chart Recommender: AI analyzes your data and suggests the most relevant visualization to highlight it. Accelerate the creation of meaningful reports.
Predictive Series: Time series analysis, trend detection, and projections with confidence intervals — all without special technical skills. Business users can simulate “what-if” scenarios to anticipate the impact of their decisions.
Key Takeaways
1. BusinessObjects has a future — With major versions through 2029 and support until 2032+, companies can confidently continue investing in this platform.
2. Three clear differentiators — Data source agnostic, enterprise reporting (pixel-perfect + high-volume distribution), and on-premise. BusinessObjects remains the choice for these use cases.
3. AI in BusinessObjects goes through partners — SAP has made the strategic choice not to develop native AI in BusinessObjects. The reason: AI’s pace of evolution is incompatible with on-premise deployment cycles.
4. Need4Viz recognized as a strategic partner — Eric Fenollosa’s words are unambiguous: SAP doesn’t invest in widgets, maps, and AI because Need4Viz already does a “fantastic job.”
5. Prepare your migrations — UNV to UNX conversion and the discontinuation of certain components require planning. Don’t delay.
Want to Extend Web Intelligence Today?
SAP said it clearly: advanced widgets, maps, publishing, and artificial intelligence in BusinessObjects — it’s now, and it’s with N4V FOR WEBI.
Contact us for a personalized demonstration and discover how N4V FOR WEBI can transform your Web Intelligence experience:
- 60+ interactive widgets for modern dashboards
- Integrated GIS mapping capabilities
- Report publishing outside BusinessObjects
- AI-powered natural language queries and forecasting
Download the presentation from SAP
“Webi just got a brAIn!”
About Need4Viz
Need4Viz develops N4V FOR WEBI, the reference solution for extending SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence capabilities. Recognized by SAP as a strategic partner, Need4Viz helps companies modernize their BI with advanced widgets, interactive maps, publishing capabilities, and artificial intelligence.
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