From the CEO

With our 50th anniversary on the horizon, it’s incredible to reflect on SAS’ established leadership in data and AI. We take pride in our longstanding record of sustained financial strength, including a robust global presence, steady recurring revenue from decades-long customer relationships and no debt. As the world and our market continue to evolve, our commitment to continuous innovation remains unwavering. Through our market-leading platform, industry solutions and packaged AI models, we continue to help our customers address emerging new challenges and stay ahead of the competition.

Last year, we invested in key areas to strengthen our software portfolio and made significant enhancements to our data and AI platform, SAS Viya. We added new features to our award-winning industry solutions and delivered innovative packaged AI models. Through it all, we maintained an intense focus on building trustworthiness and reliability into our software design and processes.

We also refreshed our company vision: to be the most trustworthy data and AI partner that powers the world’s decisions. This is increasingly important as companies and organizations around the globe are experiencing major information and data overload – and the world’s total amount of data is expected to increase to nearly 400 zettabytes by 2028. SAS has the capabilities and expertise to help our customers make sense of this data and leverage it to make the right decisions – on a daily, hourly and even minute-by-minute basis.

 

Our performance

In 2024, SAS made notable strategic decisions to advance our technology, capitalize on market opportunity and create a competitive advantage for our customers. These efforts led to another year of strong growth in our key focus areas. We recorded 24% growth in SAS Viya sales, with 56% growth in SAS Viya 4 sales alone. We also saw 16% growth in SAS Managed Cloud Services sales, marking a fifth year of double-digit cloud growth. Additionally, we continued to garner analyst validation with 47 analyst evaluations recognizing SAS as a leader in AI, machine learning, customer intelligence, risk, fraud and security intelligence.

 

SAS Viya

SAS Viya accelerates each step of the data and AI life cycle, helping customers get the outcomes they need faster. New advancements in the last year, such as SAS Viya Workbench and SAS Viya Copilot, help extend the capabilities of Viya to enhance productivity and make it easier to access the Viya ecosystem.

Third-party validation continues to prove this impressive productivity and speed: A 2024 Futurum Group study found that teams using Viya are over 4x more productive than those using other tools, and a 2023 Futurum Group study found that Viya is 30x faster than commercial and non-commercial alternatives. From a cost-saving perspective, speed is critical. When you run workloads in the cloud, it’s expensive. You save exponentially more money by getting the results you need at exponentially faster speeds.

Leading organizations across industries continue to turn to SAS Viya to modernize their organizations. One example of a notable new Viya deal from 2024 is His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC). HMRC, the United Kingdom’s tax service, collects taxes and duties worth over $800bn a year from more than 45 million individuals and 5 million businesses. Last year, HMRC implemented SAS Viya with SAS Managed Cloud Services to run a native fraud management solution to help handle some of this staggering volume of data. Additionally, last year, the Government of Canada signed a deal with SAS for data and AI modernization, selecting SAS as its primary analytical solution. The seven-year arrangement will benefit 26 participating departments and agencies, significantly streamlining software management and reducing spending. And just earlier this year, SAS became the official data and AI partner of Los Angeles Football Club, which will use SAS Viya and Customer Intelligence 360 to gain real-time insights into everything from player performance to fan behavior, driving sustainable growth both on and off the field.

 

SAS solutions

SAS has been in the solution business for over 25 years, bringing customers robust, versionable solutions with prebuilt IP inside. From helping financial customers predict risk and fraud to partnering with top retailers to create world-class customer experiences – we deliver proven, trusted value across industries.

For example, we are transforming the insurance industry by helping companies assess risk, set premiums and create personalized experiences that help both customers and insurers. Brazil’s insurance confederation, CNseg, uses SAS to tackle fraud, increasing its fraudulent claim detection by 67%. In the health care and life sciences space, we help research organizations and pharmaceutical companies accelerate medical discoveries and get new drugs to market faster. For example, researchers at University College Dublin are using SAS Viya on Microsoft Azure to transform the diagnosis and management of preeclampsia with the hopes of saving tens of thousands of expectant mother and infant lives each year. We have decades of experience helping governments manage taxes, improve transparency and protect citizens. For example, in Jakarta, the largest city in Southeast Asia, public service agency Jakarta Smart City implemented SAS advanced analytics, AI, machine learning and IoT solutions on SAS Viya to drive better decisions, improve public services and accelerate disaster response strategies.

 

Our opportunity

SAS is well-positioned to help companies drive better business outcomes in less time. Our investments across our full portfolio are enabling innovation across key areas.

 

Mine real value from the GenAI wave

To meet customers’ AI needs, we continue to broaden our trustworthy GenAI footprint in the areas of synthetic data generation, LLM governance and orchestration with SAS Viya and Viya Copilots.

Synthetic data generation is a game changer for customers who face data access challenges, breaking through the scarcity, cost and privacy barriers of real data. To help them address these challenges, SAS acquired the technology of synthetic data leader Hazy in November 2024. The acquisition extends the capabilities of SAS Data Maker, a SAS offering previewed in 2024, and gives our customers unparalleled opportunities to harness data safely and effectively and model scenarios that were previously out of reach.

 

Embrace the power of digital twins

Digital twins, virtual replicas that simulate, test and optimize physical systems before implementation in the real world, empower organizations to unlock substantial efficiency gains. SAS has been developing digital twins in the manufacturing space for years, but we see even more opportunity on the horizon by leveraging gaming analytics, synthetic data and immersive simulation technologies traditionally used in video game development. These enhanced digital twins can help manufacturers improve factory operations, lower costs and better protect their workers.

 

Transform industries with quantum AI

Quantum computing is on the brink of becoming the next major transformative technology and is at the forefront of our research in SAS R&D. We are working with top companies to jointly explore how quantum can solve complex business problems across industries, starting with life sciences, banking and material science.

 

Empower trustworthy decisions

With concerns about data security in the cloud, trusted frameworks and guidelines, and integration with on-premises systems, today’s business leaders need a vendor that unlocks both efficiency and trust. SAS Viya enables trustworthy practices at every stage of the AI and analytics life cycle, from development to deployment, while SAS Managed Cloud Services enable organizations to streamline operations while reducing security risks.

 

Enhance collaboration and productivity for developers

While AI developers and modelers are looking for open source packages and cutting-edge cloud compute, they are challenged to deliver faster results at minimized costs. SAS Viya Workbench addresses this problem head-on. Powerful SAS analytical procedures and native Python APIs within Viya Workbench accelerate the development of high-performance AI models, increasing productivity and innovation across organizations.

 

Realize faster ROI with commercial models

In the past, organizations that used AI typically had to build AI. Today, customers want to easily consume and quickly integrate AI into their existing business processes. Our new industry-focused SAS Models address this need. SAS Models are lightweight and engineered for fast integration, enabling customers to operationalize trustworthy AI technology and quickly realize ROI.

 

Our strategy

In 2025, we will continue to advance innovative offerings, grow our base and appeal to developers of tomorrow. Along the way, we will maintain the special workplace culture that sets us apart.

 

Continue to provide top-tier customer support

Beyond providing best-in-class capabilities, SAS also delivers top-tier customer support with expert service teams. We’ve invested in our Customer Success Program to expand these resources and streamline and improve the customer experience. Moving forward, we will continue our unwavering focus on accelerating the realization of superior value for our customers.

 

Multiply impact with SAS Partners

SAS Partners have always been an important part of our growth strategy, but in recent years, we’ve doubled down on our focus, deepening our technology partnerships, establishing new global distributor agreements and elevating our global systems integrators. Notably, last year, we introduced SAS Decision Builder on Microsoft Fabric and expanded SAS-hosted managed services to Amazon Web Services.

 

Build the next generation of innovators

To empower new technologists, we provide free access to our software to students and pursue initiatives that help make tech careers more accessible to people from all backgrounds. Last year, we updated SAS Viya for Learners to run on the latest version of our software, and we introduced SAS Viya Workbench for Learners, providing students with valuable, real-world experience in cross-language proficiency. We also continue to grow the industry pipeline of technical talent through our SAS Academic Specializations programs, now at more than 450 universities worldwide.

 

Maintain the culture that sets us apart

SAS’ trailblazing workplace culture has long been regarded as an industry best practice. Our philosophy is simple: We take care of our employees, and in turn, they take care of our customers. We will continue to invest in our people and provide them with the support and resources they need to develop new ideas, help our customers meet emerging challenges and help SAS maintain our industry-leading position.

 

Our promise

SAS helps power the world’s decisions, championing the use of data and AI for the best possible future of people and our planet. For decades, SAS has taken on projects that tackle large-scale, global problems because we believe in the power of using data for good.

We will continue delivering on our promise to advance trustworthy solutions that enable our customers to innovate responsibly. It’s up to all of us to ensure that decisions made by AI on behalf of people are explainable, transparent and fair. We will also further advocate for and collaborate with other committed organizations on trustworthy AI regulation, providing counsel and testimony based on our nearly 50 years of helping customers use data to move the world forward.

As the trusted leader in data and AI, SAS has the proven experience, portfolio and strategy to power the decisions of today – and tomorrow.

Jim Goodnight, CEO, SAS

Innovating responsibly

The rise of powerful AI technologies has sparked global conversations around the risks and opportunities of AI.

SAS believes responsible innovation starts with responsible innovators. That is why we are committed to working with customers, partners and academia to increase awareness of the necessity for technology that is developed and deployed in ways that are ethical, equitable and sustainable for individuals and societies.

SAS supports responsible innovation through the trustworthy AI features of SAS Viya, including bias detection, explainability, decision auditability and model monitoring, governance, and accountability that help organizations capitalize on innovation and deliver on their values while remaining compliant. This includes model cards, which are like nutrition labels for models, providing a clear, comprehensive and standardized overview of an AI model’s components.

In 2024, SAS launched AI Governance Advisory, a value-added service for current customers.  Beginning with a short assessment, SAS AI Governance Advisory helps customers think through what AI governance means in the context of their organizations.

Championed by SAS leaders and the SAS Data Ethics Practice, which is a global team focused on the strategic implementation of our responsible innovation initiatives, SAS works with industries and governments to ensure the responsible use of SAS technology, frequently providing counsel and testimony based on nearly 50 years of helping customers gain insights through data. In the US, SAS collaborates with other committed organizations, including the US Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology AI Safety Institute Consortium, EqualAI, AI4All, the Business Roundtable, and other groups.

Around the world, SAS works with regulators and policymakers to help shape AI laws and policies, including consulting with the EU and EU Member States to inform policies related to trustworthy AI. SAS is a signatory of the European Commission’s AI Pact, joining more than 130 companies in accelerating the adoption of the European Union AI Act’s principles within their organizations.

SAS also engages with policymakers in Asia Pacific countries such as Singapore, Australia, India and Japan. For example, SAS collaborated with the Monetary Authority of Singapore-led Veritas consortium to integrate the Veritas Toolkit into the company’s AI solutions for the financial sector. Additionally, SAS joined the Commonwealth AI Consortium, which includes global tech firms, research institutions, nonprofits and at least six Commonwealth member countries, which have stepped forward to champion AI innovation.

SAS will continue to lead important responsible innovation conversations while also working with and learning from customers, partners, academics, students, community organizations and nonprofits to inform its own practices and explore new ways to empower people with data and AI.

Across all major industries, SAS helps customers meet business needs, improve decision-making and unlock competitive advantages – no matter the size of the organization.

Transform and strengthen banking

Banking’s metamorphosis continues, shaped by a powerful combination of evolving global macroeconomic conditions, access to expanded technological capabilities, shifting customer expectations, enhanced regulatory requirements and a perennial need to deliver improved shareholder value. Against this backdrop, it is essential for banks to take full advantage of their data as they transform into hyperintelligent, AI-driven organizations that provide trusted customer experiences while simultaneously addressing risk, fraud and compliance mandates.

Over the past five decades, SAS has delivered proven value to both large and small financial services customers, unlocking AI’s vast potential for organizational transformation. To ensure success in an evolving digital world, we help firms apply AI, analytics, cloud, open banking APIs, fintech and regtech technologies to outpace competitors while continuing to manage increasing regulatory demands. To stay ahead of evolving fraud schemes, our customers turn to our embedded AI and machine learning techniques to hunt for fraudulent transactions in real time. SAS has integrated the power of Kamakura Corporation, a leading provider of risk management software and data, which helps us deepen our integrated risk solutions and serve additional facets of the financial services industry.

Across aspects of banking, SAS helps business leaders make smarter decisions, unlock AI’s vast potential and successfully transform to meet the evolving needs of their customers in a digitalized world.

Reinvent Insurance

The insurance sector is undergoing radical change, driven by growing customer experience expectations, opportunities presented by digital innovation, growing climate risk and market turbulence. To make sense of their data and stay ahead of the competition, insurers are turning to AI, using its capabilities to provide more personalized customer experiences and innovative risk solutions while managing costs and meeting compliance requirements.

To navigate these tides of change, insurers turn to SAS and our advanced, cloud-native AI and analytics for customer marketing and servicing, pricing and underwriting, claims, and fraud management, as well as compliance and financial management to deliver quick wins and rapid ROI.

For over 40 years, SAS has delivered consistent value to the insurance industry and its leaders. Around the world, insurance companies of all sizes, including 47 of the world’s 50 largest global insurers, rely on SAS to build a better customer experience, help detect and prevent fraud, optimize risk and pricing management, and prepare for tomorrow’s challenges.

Accelerate innovation in health care and life sciences

The future of health starts with trusted data and AI. Across the health ecosystem – from drug discovery to clinical trials to patient care and effective hospital operations – data is the lifeblood of a healthier future.

SAS works closely with health and life sciences customers to unlock insights into their data through tailored industry solutions built on SAS Viya, including SAS Health, a comprehensive data and analytics enterprise solution. SAS helps customers innovate to improve health outcomes, enhance operational efficiency, improve health equity, and drive better, safer therapies to market faster in a highly regulated and competitive landscape.

In 2024, SAS continued to expand the portfolio of data and AI solutions for life sciences and health care that reflect our commitment to industry investments in our products and services. The latest, SAS Clinical Acceleration Repository, offers an open, cloud-native and scalable analytics platform that manages and integrates clinical research data to improve clinical trial development and accelerate the path to regulatory submission.

SAS Data Maker, released in 2025, will support the increasing use of synthetic data in health care and life sciences to train and test AI models in place of or in addition to real-world data. SAS continues to explore new innovations in AI and accelerate opportunities to achieve a healthier future. Together, we deliver better health outcomes for more people worldwide.

Drive productivity in the public sector

From public health to public finance and national security to infrastructure, SAS empowers the public sector to use data and AI to improve results and serve the public better, faster and easier. SAS puts governments’ data to work to improve effectiveness and productivity and create better outcomes for individuals, families and communities. With data and AI, governments are better prepared for uncertainty and able to respond quickly to complex, evolving public sector challenges. With trustworthy AI and analytics from SAS, they can easily explain their decision making and processes while supporting data privacy and security.

SAS’ first customer was a government agency, and today, more than 1,600 public sector departments, ministries, offices and agencies use SAS to enhance the safety, health and well-being of citizens. Within public health, SAS is used to better quantify needs, inform policies, assess population health programs and address inequities. In tax, procurement and social services, SAS helps governments fight fraud and protect tax dollars by getting the right funds to the right people at the right time. Government agencies charged with providing safety and security, infrastructure, and administrative oversight analyze real-time data with SAS to understand current conditions, respond in a timely manner, and optimize performance.

Worldwide, government organizations are using SAS to become more resilient, capable and agile, ready to tackle whatever challenges are around the corner.

Discover trusted cross-industry solutions

Organizations that want trusted solutions infused with built-in domain expertise turn to SAS. In addition to leading industry solutions in focus areas like banking, insurance, health care and life sciences, and the public sector, SAS’ cross-industry solutions help customers across industries power better, faster and more trusted decisions.

SAS’ fraud, anti-money laundering and security intelligence solutions help organizations fight fraudsters, safeguard reputations and protect bottom lines. We continue to be recognized as a leading force in the fight against fraud.

For example, last year, SAS was rated an enterprise fraud solutions category leader by Chartis for the 11th consecutive year.

SAS has proven methodologies and best practices to help establish a risk-aware culture, optimize capital and liquidity, and meet regulatory demands. Analysts and our customers take note of our innovative solutions – SAS is the only vendor that has placed in the Top 5 of the Chartis RiskTech100 each year since its 2005 debut.

When it comes to customer intelligence, SAS Customer Intelligence 360 outperforms the rest with embedded customer data platform capabilities that enable organizations to seamlessly collect, enhance, extend and activate customer data. SAS 360 Match, our first-party ad server, helps organizations plan, manage, forecast, serve, optimize and measure all ad inventory across digital platforms, enabling media and data monetization, retail media network creation and execution, and dynamic ad personalization. SAS Customer Intelligence 360 is a leader across analyst evaluations for AI decisioning, customer analytics, cross-channel marketing hubs, real-time interaction management and digital intelligence platforms. SAS is the only vendor to appear in The Forrester WaveTM Cross-Channel Marketing Hub evaluation for 15 consecutive years without undergoing a major acquisition and/or divestiture.

Built on our scalable, open analytics platform, SAS IoT solutions help industry leaders create and sustain true value from diverse IoT data and initiatives – whether that data is at the edge, in the cloud or anywhere in between. From livestock monitoring to flood prediction and preparedness, SAS and our leading-edge partners enable transformative IoT and AI solutions to drive decisions in critical moments.

Multiplying impact with partners

At SAS, we know that when we combine our AI and analytics leadership with the innovative technology and expertise of our partners, we help our customers make better decisions in the moments that matter most. SAS partners bring our data and AI platform to life, creating innovative new applications to solve business problems, guiding our customers through deployment and helping them get the most out of SAS for all their analytics needs.

SAS’ vibrant partner ecosystem is composed of powerful value creators that help solve customers’ most challenging problems through solution delivery, development and co-creation. Partners extend SAS’ ability to bring customers insights and a competitive edge. SAS supports its partners with expert enablement, ready-to-use co-marketing materials and performance-based incentives to deliver superior partner and customer experiences. SAS commits software and expert resources, collaborates with partners on their technology, and builds new partner-driven, market-ready solutions that empower our partners and customers to grow their businesses.

Our partner community

Collaborating with technology partners

We engage with technology partners to help our customers derive even greater value from their data with optimized experiences. These partners accelerate customer outcomes, hyperscale compute potential and help control creeping storage and infrastructure costs.

Delivering with global system integrators

Our global system integrators (GSIs) use their deep SAS skills, industry experience and customer relationships to ensure that customers maximize the value of their data and AI investments. With implementation teams across enterprises and architectures, GSIs help shorten the distance from data to insight, accelerating successful results.

Scaling with channel partners

We serve more clients and markets by working with distributors, solution providers and service providers to solve customers’ most complex problems and address their most profitable opportunities through delivering and managing our cutting-edge data and AI solutions. SAS partners bring industry knowledge and SAS expertise to market, turning data into answers at scale.

^*These are a sampling of our many valued SAS partners.

Improving our world through data and AI

Whether protecting our environment, improving patient treatments and outcomes or educating the next generation of data scientists – we believe in the power of data and analytics to improve the human condition. Knowing that the power of trustworthy technology can help drive better decisions and create a more sustainable future, we strive to help our communities and customers with their environmental, social and governance initiatives. As a global leader in data and AI, SAS is passionate about helping customers apply its cutting-edge data management, AI technology and expertise to help solve some of society’s biggest problems.

One of the ways that SAS does this is through the Data for Good movement, which encourages using data in meaningful ways to address humanitarian issues around poverty, health, human rights, education and the environment. As a vital part of the Data Ethics Practice, SAS Data for Good projects showcase the power of SAS technology through initiatives like increasing STEM diversity, maximizing mental health resources and protecting endangered animals and ecosystems. These efforts put SAS’ principles into practice, addressing pressing global issues through the lens of responsible innovation.

Each year, SAS employees volunteer their time in various Data for Good projects to tackle these societal challenges and help support a better, safer and more equitable world. Our social impact programs rely on their curiosity, expertise and passion for using their skills for social good. Thanks to these efforts, as well as the company’s partnerships with customers, industry groups, nonprofits, governments and global organizations, SAS continues to apply technology to the world’s most pressing needs.

Internally, we focus on our own efforts to improve the world we share. SAS has prioritized being a good corporate citizen, consistently expanding our sustainability and conservation efforts at SAS locations around the globe. SAS also strives to help our community through charitable donations, volunteering in our communities and applying our innovation for good in the world. Our corporate philanthropy supports strategic education initiatives that increase interest in and exposure to data, AI, analytics and computer science to help create a diverse STEM workforce.

Empowering a new generation of technologists

SAS offers teachers and learners free and low-cost options for accessing our world-class software, like the SAS Educator Portal, which simplifies integrating data and AI into the classroom, and SAS Skill Builder for Students, an online portal to help launch students’ AI and analytics careers. In 2024, 300,000 educators and learners accessed our free software offerings. We also launched SAS Viya Workbench for Learners, a free cloud-based, on-demand compute environment with flexible programming environments and seamless tool integration. And more than 100 student teams across 19 countries competed in our data science Curiosity Cup competition.

To help increase diversity in AI, we partnered with the Commonwealth AI Consortium last year to bring AI software and computing resources to Commonwealth countries, particularly small states, to help higher education students learn how to use AI responsibly. We also announced a new class of HBCU+ Fellows, a program that supports educators at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by helping increase access to data and AI education. In 2024, we brought on fellows from Code the Dream, an organization that aims to make tech careers accessible to people from diverse low-income backgrounds. They worked on critical projects and received intensive training, leading to many receiving full-time employment at SAS.

 

Credentialing

In 2024, SAS established more than 55 new partnerships with college and university programs worldwide. The SAS Certification and Skills Directory allows employers to find those who hold these sought-after industry credentials.

 

Communities

Our vibrant online community allows users to exchange extensive SAS expertise or look for help through presentations, hands-on workshops and access to SAS experts. The online community also provides a space for collaboration on global programs like the SAS Hackathon.

 

Data and AI literacy

In addition to our free data literacy courses, SAS also launched free Responsible Innovation and Trustworthy AI coursework for students and professionals. We also partner with organizations like Code.org, AI4All, CS4All and Data Science for Everyone to inspire students’ fascination with data.

Fostering a world-class culture

Our culture has always been an integral part of who we are as a company, connecting the curious nature that gave us our start to the spirit of innovation that moves us forward. SAS is recognized internationally as a pioneer in creating a great workplace and remains true to that spirit every day. 

Our holistic approach to corporate culture keeps SAS ranked among the best workplaces worldwide and at the top of myriad lists that acknowledge a commitment to work/life integration and fostering a sense of belonging. At SAS, we have a multidimensional culture that blends the different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives of employees worldwide. 

Our diversity of thought, background and abilities allows us to deliver great software that can solve our customers’ biggest challenges. We believe great ideas can come from anywhere and foster meaningful work, well-being and empowerment to make a difference that changes people’s lives.