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22 July 2025 Product Updates 4 min read

How AI Is Transforming SAP Web Intelligence: Inside N4V Intelligence

Introduction

For years, SAP Web Intelligence has been a cornerstone of operational reporting within enterprises. Powerful, reliable, and widely adopted, it has nonetheless remained largely technical, often requiring deep knowledge of universes, objects, filters, and query logic.

With the introduction of N4V Intelligence, Need4Viz brings a major evolution to the Web Intelligence experience: artificial intelligence directly embedded into WebI, enabling users to interact with their data using natural language.

Presented during the webinar “You Think You Know WebI”, N4V Intelligence marks a decisive step toward more accessible, conversational, and intelligent analytics—without replacing or disrupting existing SAP BusinessObjects environments.

From Traditional WebI to AI-Driven Analytics

Web Intelligence excels at operational and pixel-perfect reporting, but it has historically faced three key limitations:

  • Limited native data visualization capabilities
  • No integrated artificial intelligence
  • A steep learning curve for non-technical users

To address these gaps, Need4Viz has progressively built a comprehensive extension ecosystem for SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence. Today, this ecosystem is structured around four complementary pillars:

  • N4V Widgets – modern and interactive data visualizations
  • N4V Maps – advanced geographic analytics (online and offline)
  • N4V Publisher – HTML and image publishing beyond the BI platform
  • N4V Intelligence – AI-powered natural language interaction and chart recommendations

Together, these components turn Web Intelligence into a 4-in-1 data visualization and analytics platform, combining enterprise robustness with modern user experience.

What Is N4V Intelligence?

N4V Intelligence is an AI assistant natively integrated into Web Intelligence using SAP-supported extension points. Its primary goal is simple but powerful: allow users to build queries, reports, and dashboards by describing their needs in natural language.

Instead of manually browsing universe objects, defining filters, and selecting charts, users can simply ask questions such as:

“Show me sales and margin by store for last year.”

“What medals did U.S. athletes win at the Paris Olympics?”

The AI interprets the request, generates the correct WebI query, creates the data table, and even suggests the most relevant visualization automatically.

A key differentiator is security: only universe metadata is sent to the AI engine—never actual business data—ensuring full compliance with enterprise data governance requirements.

Conversational BI in Action: Real-World Use Cases

During the live demonstration, N4V Intelligence showcased true conversational BI capabilities. Users could ask follow-up questions without rephrasing entire queries, and the AI retained context throughout the interaction.

Examples included:

  • Switching from one athlete to another while keeping the same medal analysis
  • Adding or removing columns conversationally
  • Applying complex filters using plain language, including wildcard conditions
  • Selecting single or multiple filter values via AI-generated prompts

The assistant also supports inexperienced users by explaining available objects, proposing example questions, and mapping business terms (like revenue or units) to technical universe objects automatically.

This approach dramatically reduces dependency on IT teams while empowering business users to explore data on their own.

Intelligent Visualization with Chart Recommendations

Beyond query generation, N4V Intelligence includes an AI-driven chart recommender tightly integrated with the N4V widget library.

Based on the structure and semantics of the selected data, the AI:

  • Evaluates the dataset
  • Scores the most suitable visualization types
  • Recommends advanced charts such as combined axes, geographic maps, pictorial stacks, or word clouds

Users can instantly convert tables into interactive visuals with a single action, maintaining full drill-down, filtering, and tooltip capabilities. The result is faster dashboard creation and consistently better data storytelling.

Transparency, Control, and Enterprise Readiness

A critical design principle of N4V Intelligence is user control. All AI-generated queries remain fully visible and editable within Web Intelligence. Advanced users can inspect, modify, or extend queries after generation, ensuring trust and adoption across technical and non-technical profiles.

From an enterprise standpoint, N4V Intelligence:

  • Is compatible with SAP BusinessObjects 4.3 SP3+ and BI 2025
  • Runs on both Windows and Linux
  • Requires no specific hardware
  • Leverages existing WebI scheduling and distribution mechanisms
  • Supports English and French, with more languages planned

The initial release focuses on universes, with future extensions planned for more advanced query logic and additional semantic layers.

Conclusion

N4V Intelligence represents a fundamental shift in how organizations use SAP Web Intelligence. By embedding AI-powered natural language querying and intelligent visualization recommendations directly into WebI, Need4Viz transforms a powerful reporting tool into a conversational, user-friendly analytics platform.

Without migrating data, changing infrastructure, or compromising security, enterprises can:

  • Reduce IT workload
  • Accelerate BI adoption
  • Empower business users
  • Maximize the value of their existing SAP BusinessObjects investment

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