(Image credit: SAS)
SAS Institute (Cary, N.C.) expanded its SAS Viya platform with new AI assistants and agentic AI capabilities, positioning the offering as a governed, enterprise-ready environment for scaling AI. The updates were announced at SAS Innovate 2026 in Grapevine, Texas.
The enhancements include SAS Viya Copilot, a set of embedded AI assistants; a Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server to expose analytics and decisioning capabilities to AI agents; and an Agentic AI Accelerator framework to build, govern, and deploy agents. Together, the additions are intended to help organizations move from isolated generative AI use cases to production-ready, governed intelligence.
Jared Peterson, SVP, Global Engineering, SAS.
“The role of human expertise in operationalizing agentic AI is not diminished by automation; it’s elevated,” comments Jared Peterson, SVP, Global Engineering, SAS. “With SAS Viya, organizations can pair copilots and agents with human judgment, trusted data and enterprise governance.”
Embedded Copilots Support Analytics Workflows
SAS Viya Copilot is designed as a conversational AI assistant embedded directly within analytics workflows, enabling users to analyze data, build models, and make decisions while maintaining enterprise governance and security controls.
The copilot supports tasks such as code generation, model pipeline guidance, dashboard creation, and AI-assisted investigation, operating across both coding environments and visual interfaces. SAS emphasized that the assistant is grounded in domain-specific data models and industry context rather than relying solely on generalized large language model capabilities.
Industry-specific copilots are already available for areas such as asset and liability management and clinical data analysis, with additional vertical use cases planned.
Agent Infrastructure Extends AI Across Systems
Beyond assistants, SAS introduced infrastructure to support the development and orchestration of AI agents across enterprise environments.
The MCP Server provides a standardized interface for exposing SAS analytics and decisioning tools to external agents, while the Agentic AI Accelerator offers frameworks and components for building and governing agents across skill levels. These capabilities are designed to connect insights, decisions, and actions across systems while maintaining enterprise controls.
SAS also highlighted its Retrieval Agent Manager, a no-code solution based on retrieval-augmented generation, which is expected to be integrated into Viya to further ground AI outputs in enterprise data.
From Experimentation to Governed AI at Scale
The updates reflect a broader industry shift toward operationalizing AI within governed environments. SAS positions Viya as a platform where AI assistants and agents can work together to deliver scalable, compliant outcomes across business processes.
The expansion builds on SAS’s emphasis on governance, aiming to enable organizations to accelerate AI adoption while maintaining transparency, control, and alignment with enterprise and regulatory requirements.
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