What to expect from SAS Innovate 2026
The Computer Weekly Developer Network is off to SAS Innovate 2026, held from April 27 to 30 2026, at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas… so what can we expect?
The event itself is designed to attract data scientists, business leaders, developers and analytics professionals.
At this point of inflexion for the artificial intelligence industry, SAS will aim to stage the event in a manner that continues its reputation as (accoring to SAS) “one of the most substantive events” in the analytics calendar throughout the year.
“SAS Innovate 2026 marks a truly special milestone for SAS and our users,” said Jennifer Chase, chief marketing officer at SAS. “This year we celebrate our 50th anniversary.
The agenda shows us keynotes and over 200 breakout sessions, 50 workshops and labs, and more than 20 certification opportunities.
“For 50 years, we’ve helped our customers navigate every economic shift and technology transition. And now we are poised to support the most powerful and consequential generational shift of our time: the AI era. SAS Innovate attendees will come away equipped with new skills, invigorated by relevant insights and inspired to make real-world, transformative impact with data and AI,” added Chase.
The underlying promise of the event hinges around an opportunity to understand how to connect code to commercial impact, which is (arguably) a pretty good summation of the challenges companies will be facing now as they look to justify their AI investments with hard return on investment (ROI) evidence.
Key focus areas
Key focus areas for the event itself will include (unsurprisingly) Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, with an exploration of generative and agentic AI, predictive modelling and advanced analytics techniques.
SAS will also focus on cloud analytics platform technologies with sessions on SAS Viya (the company’s AI-driven, cloud-native data and analytics platform for data management, visualization and scalable machine learning model deployment) and cloud-based analytics solutions for scalable data processing.
There’s also a focus here on fraud detection and risk management with sessions on identifying and preventing fraud using data analytics and AI. Customer and marketing analytics features with explanations of strategies to improve customer engagement and digital experiences through data-driven analytics. In the verticals, there is use case learning aligned to software solutions tailored for healthcare, financial services, manufacturing and IoT analytics.
Hands-on training and certification with span workshops, labs and certification exams to build practical skills and validate expertise.
Mel Robbins, creator and host of the Mel Robbins Podcast and author, will join Jennifer Chase for a fireside chat on motivation, mindset and making big ideas happen.
With more than 60 million subscribers, sports and comedy YouTubers Dude Perfect will host a takeover with live competitions featuring SAS Innovate attendees, custom-built challenges created exclusively for SAS Innovate and a behind-the-scenes conversation on how Dude Perfect uses creativity, analytics and audience insights to power their global brand.
SAS platform overview
We’ve mentioned SAS Viya already, the company’s flagship cloud-native analytics platform that integrates data management, advanced analytics, AI and machine learning. The company will also cover the following key products.
- SAS Visual Analytics: A data visualisation and exploration tool that creates interactive reports and dashboards through a drag-and-drop interface.
- SAS Data Management: A suite of tools for data integration, data quality, data governance and master data management tools.
- SAS Customer Intelligence 360: A marketing analytics platform that combines customer data, AI and campaign management to optimise customer experiences.
- SAS Fraud Management: A real-time fraud detection and prevention service that uses analytics and machine learning to identify and mitigate fraudulent activities.
- SAS Risk Management: A risk analytics platform that supports credit, market, operational and enterprise risk management through predictive modelling and regulatory compliance tools.
- SAS Forecasting for Retail: A specialised forecasting solution for demand planning and inventory management.
- SAS Data Maker: Enables users to generate realistic, privacy-compliant datasets. This is of particular use for the healthcare and banking sectors, where sensitive data often bottlenecks AI development.
At the conference is an Innovation Hub, with more than 50 demos showcasing the latest in AI, analytics and industry solutions. The SAS Spotlight Stage within the Hub will host exclusive sessions expanding on main-stage announcements, thereby (according to the company) that the event ensures even the most niche technical questions get airtime.
Circle R Ranch
After hours? Well, this is Texas, so the celebration night will take place at the Circle R Ranch… and yes, that means barbecue, rodeo and cowboy/cowgirl hate.
No doubt looking to recap on recent news, we can also expect SAS to mention that SAS Viya became available to US public sector organisations and their partners on Microsoft Azure Government at the start of this year.
A recent SAS study suggested that only 11% of banks have cracked the code on trustworthy AI, so SAS will be aiming to explain where financial institutions can move next with this technology.
The central theme for SAS Innovate 2026 is ‘Operationalising AI at Scale’, which is a progression from last year’s focus on the emergence of generative AI. The company says that this year’s Innovate is also about helping the real world software engineering and data science practitioners whose responsibility it is to move these AI models into production reliably, ethically and profitably.
All the agenda, event information and registration details are online, so let’s saddle up.
