The Call For Content for SAS Innovate 2026 just wrapped—and wow, the response was incredible! As part of the content review team, I’m blown away by the creativity, expertise, and passion in nearly 550 proposals from across the globe. The SAS community never fails to impress. Now comes the tough (but exciting) challenge: curating the very best ideas to shape an agenda that will inspire, educate, and energize us all!   Of the topics that we're reviewing, here are the themes that are emerging:     Agentic AI and Automation: The rise of autonomous, explainable, and orchestrated AI agents is a defining trend, with a focus on blending automation with human oversight and governance. Modernization & Migration: Moving from legacy SAS 9 to Viya, cloud-native architectures, and open integration with Python/R are central to many submissions. Responsible AI & Governance: Trust, transparency, and regulatory compliance are top priorities, with practical frameworks for AI risk management and model validation. Synthetic Data & Privacy: Synthetic data generation is enabling innovation while meeting privacy and compliance needs, especially in healthcare and financial services. Industry Transformation: Real-world case studies show SAS solutions driving measurable impact in banking, healthcare, manufacturing, public sector, and retail. User Empowerment: Self-service analytics, low/no-code tools, and AI copilots are democratizing advanced analytics for business users and non-technical audiences. Visualization & Communication: There’s a strong emphasis on storytelling, custom visuals, and making analytics actionable for decision-makers. This year, my particular focus is in the SAS Programming and SAS 9 area, and I'm pleased to say that there are many strong entries! If you’re a SAS 9 user, you’ll find practical tips, modernization roadmaps, and inspiring customer stories that meet you where you are—while opening doors to what’s next.   Stay tuned for the final agenda—coming your way in early 2026! If you submitted a proposal, keep an eye on your inbox; the committee will be reaching out before the winter holidays. In the meantime, what topics are you most excited to see on the agenda? Let’s get the conversation started below! (And don't forget, registration for the conference is open, with a great price for early action!)   ... View more

The ability to generate realistic synthetic data holds great promise for supporting analytics and AI development efforts where data is scarce, inaccessible or insufficient. In this demonstration, you will see how SAS Data Maker can be used to enrich and enhance data to improve model accuracy, creating the potential to affect business decisions that lead to cost savings and improved customer experience.   Presenting Company: SAS Watch the recording   ... View more

SAS Analytics Explorers is a fun and competitive experience for SAS practitioners and SAS learners. Members are invited to compete in small challenges while learning SAS, participating in discussions on Data and AI, and networking inside and outside the Explorers hub! Use SAS Analytics Explorers to grow your expertise. Complete as many challenges as you like, earn points and redeem to exiting training, education and swag rewards. Join Explorers during SAS Innovation 2024  using this link to get 1000 extra points awarded by your friendly hub administrator!   ... View more

Want to revisit SAS Innovate 2025? Need to check out the sessions that you missed?   Check out the 100+ recordings of breakout sessions and Super Demos all captured at SAS Innovate 2025. Use the Label categories to navigate the topics, or use the Search bar to find sessions related to the topics and products you care about. All sessions are also available at youtube.com/sassoftware. ... View more

Beginning with SAS 9.4M8, SAS Foundation servers use the SSL libraries provided by the OS on which SAS is deployed. In the case of FIPS (and as a SAS recommendation), recent SSL library enhancements necessitate SAS Foundation servers be configured to use the NETENCRYPTALGORITHM or its alias, NETENCRALG = SSL, to specify the use of the TLS protocol for encrypted communications. SAS is improving automation for configuring the SAS system to use TLS. In addition, beginning with PostgreSQL version 14 or later, if FIPS is enabled the hashing functions required for authentication are routed to OpenSSL and must be SCRAM-SHA-256. SAS®9 is planning multi-factor authentication for the middle tier and support for IBM Z Multi-Factor Authentication.   See also: What's New with SAS 9.4M9 Presenting Company: SAS Watch the recording ... View more