What’s New with Data Management in SAS Viya: Copilots, Data Acceleration, and What it Means for You

[markhiew]

The June 2026 update to SAS Viya introduces several enhancements designed to make it easier to work with data, write and maintain code, and scale analytics.  

At a high level, this update focuses on three areas: 

1. Simplified product names to make the portfolio easier to understand 

1. Built-in AI assistance (Viya Copilots) to help you work more efficiently 

1. A modernized in-database architecture (SAS Data Accelerator) to improve performance 

These changes build on existing capabilities in SAS Viya — they're designed to improve your day-to-day experience, not disrupt it. In this post, we'll walk through what's new and what it means for you.

Why these updates 

Over the past several years, the way teams manage data has changed significantly. 

Most organizations today are working across a mix of tools, platforms, and formats—often combining cloud data platforms, open-source technologies, and analytics environments. At the same time, expectations have increased. Teams are being asked to deliver faster results, work across larger and more complex datasets, and support both analytics and AI use cases. 

In practice, that often means dealing with familiar friction: 

• Writing and maintaining code across multiple environments 

• Tracking down the right data and understanding how it's used 

• Managing performance and cost when data needs to move between systems, and 

• Switching between tools to complete what should be a single workflow 

These updates are designed to address those day-to-day realities. The goal is not to introduce entirely new ways of working, but to make common tasks faster and simpler within the workflows you already use. 

New Names: A simpler, more consistent experience 

Several products will be renamed as part of this June 2026 release: 

• SAS Data Explorer will become SAS Data Hub 
• SAS Studio will become SAS Data and AI Studio
• SAS Information Governance will become SAS Data Governance
• SAS In-Database Technologies will become SAS Data Accelerator

These new names are intended to make the portfolio easier to understand and navigate -- especially for users working across multiple capabilities. 

Rest assured, the core functionality hasn't changed. Your existing workflows, code, and projects continue to work as before. This is a naming and packaging update, not a migration.

AI assistance in SAS Data and AI Studio 

One of the most visible additions in this release is SAS Viya Copilot for Code Assistance, now available in SAS Data and AI Studio. 

This brings generative AI directly into the coding experience, helping you write, understand, and refine SAS and Python code using natural language. You can generate code from a plain-language description, ask for explanations of existing programs, or refactor logic more quickly. It's built directly into your Studio session, so there's no separate tool to learn or context to switch. 

If you’re curious what that looks like in practice, check out this full demo from SAS Innovate 2026 that walks through the experience: Boosting Data Engineering Productivity with SAS Viya Copilot in SAS Studio - YouTube 

Coming soon: Find and understand data with SAS Viya Copilot for Data Discovery  

SAS Viya Copilot for Data Discovery in SAS Data Governance, which we initially released in February, will soon add significant additional features. They’re designed for a common challenge: spending time tracking down data, piecing together lineage, and figuring out whether a dataset is appropriate for a given use case. 

Using natural-language interaction, you'll be able to ask what data exists, where it came from, how it's used across your organization, and whether it meets your quality and governance requirements — without needing to manually navigate metadata catalogs or lineage diagrams. 

See it in action from SAS Innovate: From Chaos to Clarity: How SAS Viya Copilot for Data Governance Helps You Find the Right Data, Fast 

SAS Data Accelerator: Modernizing in-database processing 

SAS Data Accelerator (the new name for SAS In-Database Technologies) introduces a modernized in-database architecture that allows analytics and data processing to run directly where your data resides, rather than requiring the data be moved into a separate environment first. For teams working with large or distributed datasets, this can meaningfully improve performance and cost efficiency. The result? Faster processing at scale, less data movement, and more consistent behavior across platforms. 

For those already using SAS In-Database Technologies, the key changes are worth knowing: 

• Data Accelerator no longer requires CAS, which removes a layer of infrastructure overhead
• DATA step pushdown is now supported
• Pricing and packaging has been simplified, especially for customers pushing analytics to multiple databases.  

Note: Existing SAS In-Database Technologies are not going away. You can continue to rely on current capabilities as before, and we'll be sharing guidance on the modernization path as part of the rollout. 

What’s not changing 

Please rest assured - these changes will not impact your current Viya experience or migration plans: all of these updates are additive. No migration is required, your existing code continues to run, current capabilities remain fully supported. In short: nothing you're relying on today is being taken away.

What’s next 

This June release is the starting point for a broader set of enhancements planned throughout 2026, including continued expansion of Viya Copilot capabilities, additional performance improvements, and further refinements to the developer and user experience. We'll share more as these roll out. In the meantime, if you have questions about any of these updates, please let us know in the comments below. 

[markhiew]

Also, for those interested in SAS Viya Copilot, check out this Tips & Tricks page to learn how to activate it! https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/SAS-Viya-Copilot-Tips-and-Tricks/ta-p/981845