SAS Celebrates 50 Years, Charting the Future of Data and AI

Reaching a 50th anniversary is a rare milestone—one made even more remarkable when a company continues to lead boldly at the forefront of cutting edge industries.

That, however, is exactly the position SAS, the North Carolina-based software developer finds itself in as it marks five decades of global leadership in the fields of data, analytics, and now AI.

“Our 50 years of success is a testament to our founder and CEO, Jim Goodnight, who instilled an approach of always starting with the problem first, which still holds true today,” said SAS Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Bryan Harris. “That North Star of focusing on customer needs has led to us being at the heart of some of the most important moments for organizations around the world – from improving healthcare outcomes and detecting financial fraud to improving supply chains, driving scientific discoveries, and helping governments serve their citizens more efficiently and effectively.”

That approach has led SAS to occupy a uniquely trusted position with its customer base.

“Dr. Goodnight has built our company on making an impact, and our customers know that. Bring us a problem you can’t solve, and SAS will solve it better and faster than anyone else,” said SAS Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Gavin Day.

Democratizing Data

SAS incorporated in 1976 as the outcome of academic work out of North Carolina State University to develop statistical software to analyze agricultural data. That initial program, the Statistical Analysis System, became the company’s first product and was revolutionary for making statistical inquiry much more accessible to non-expert users.

Over the ensuing five decades, SAS software has played a crucial role in many of the world’s most important scientific and business challenges – from resolving a critical issue with the Hubble Space Telescope to becoming the trusted standard for clinical trial analysis throughout the globe. Today, SAS software is used by more than 90% of the Fortune 500.

“We are committed to help our customers make better decisions with their data,” Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Jennifer Chase. “Understanding data is the reason why we're able to bring drugs safely to market, it's why supply chains don't break, it's why you can have a personalized shopping experience, and so much more. SAS is committed to solving those larger issues within our customer base and within society as a whole.”

An important factor driving that half-century of impact is that SAS has always been dedicated to opening up the toolbox of data analysis to as many people as possible.

“The original SAS language helped democratize access to people to ask questions of data,” Harris explained. “But why is that important? Our technology allows organizations to engage more people in problem solving, so it’s no longer just the specialist technologists who can contribute – because, after all, most problems are not technical problems but ones that benefit from other subject matter expertise.”

“Through every iteration of our software, from physical cards to the internet to cloud to now agentic AI, our goal is to level up more people in an organization to participate in problem solving,” he added. “We are firm believers that more people working on something means a higher likelihood of getting the best answer and solution.”

Solving Customers’ Hard Problems

With a customer roster that rivals any business-to-business company on Earth, SAS has built a reputation for products that drive highly valuable insights while demonstrating consistent reliability – a critical combination in any industry or field.

That market positioning is a product of continuous work alongside customers – and regularly asking them about their biggest difficulties.

“We are constantly working alongside our customers and evolving our software in a way that is focused on solving some of the most critical hard problems for them,” said Harris. “Even as the tech stack over the years has changed, it’s the same focus: How do we make any new technology truly work in a trusted way for our customers?”

The trust that customers place in SAS has been earned through decades of consistency, he explained, especially in complicated decision environments and across every industry. In this moment of AI uncertainty, Harris added, SAS is focused on cementing that trust by ensuring that every application of new technology delivers a real return on investment for every customer.

“SAS believes in problem first, technology second. We see a lot of people walking around saying they need AI, but we come in and ask: What problem have you not been able to solve?” Harris said. “Once we see patterns emerge from our customers, we prioritize our R&D to fill the gaps they’re facing. That principle is central to our approach today, and it has not changed over the last 50 years.”

That philosophy has enabled SAS to build trusted long-term customer bonds, contributing to the stable success of the business.

“For many of our customers, the barrier to entry for trying new software and the barrier to exit legacy software is relatively low, so if you’re not focused on your customers and they're not getting value, then they're going to vote with their wallet and their feet very quickly,” Day, SAS’s COO, said. “We have built SAS for the long game, and that has allowed us operational patience to take care of our customers first – and let everything else follow downstream from there.”

Award-Winning Culture

Talk to anyone at SAS and the unique corporate culture will be one of the first things they mention. That holds true for today’s employees just as much as those from the early years.

Long before Silicon Valley boasted of on-site benefits, SAS had opened a childcare facility and a health care center at its headquarters in Cary, North Carolina, embedding work-life balance into the fabric of the company. In addition to such benefits, SAS has also taken an intentional approach to building a culture that values and supports employees for the long term.

“We are focused on our customers and our employees: Those are the two most important factors, and everything else that comes with a successful business – great products, strong revenue, etc. – is just the outcome of having great people,” Day said. “The SAS way is that when you have people who are fulfilled in their career and they're happy and you give them the space to do what they need to personally, they make great employees and they make great products and they make customers happy.”

That approach has led to repeated recognition – SAS ranked No. 3 on the inaugural issue of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 1998, and the company ultimately earned the publication’s “Legend” status after more than two decades of ranking highly on that list. Throughout its history, SAS has regularly earned similar awards both in the U.S. and internationally, even ranking as the world’s No. 1 best multinational workplace by Great Places to Work.

One of Dr. Goodnight’s oft-repeated quotes that influences decision making is that SAS is “a company of people helping other people.” That outlook frames not only the technological approach of solving problems that people care about but also the humanity of the work SAS does, Chase, SAS’s CMO, explained. Internally, she added, another Goodnight quote guides the workplace culture: “If you treat employees like they make a difference, they will.”

“Doctor Goodnight has a fundamental belief in empowering employees to do what's right for the customer, and that is what has fueled our sustainable success, and what is going to fuel us for years to come,” Chase said. “The business outcomes that we've been able to help our customers achieve and that we've achieved as a company, it's because we have that people-first mindset – it’s really our durable competitive advantage.”

A decade from now, the cutting edge of technology will have progressed, Chase explained, but the humanity, the culture, and the focus on how technology impacts people will not change at SAS.

Building the Future

As a global leader in AI and data – arguably the most important area of technological progress this decade – SAS is well positioned to reach new heights as an architect of the future of business and science.

For the SAS leadership currently leading that strategy, it will still come down to the same focus behind the last 50 years of success: solving customers’ problems.

“As we look at new and evolving technologies, we see them as potential new solutions to problems that are not new,” Harris, SAS’s CTO, said. “We are actively improving our existing solutions and finding ways to integrate these new capabilities into a range of use cases.”

He pointed to agentic AI as an area where SAS has been making investments. In particular, he explained, the company is currently focused on pairing deterministic classical AI and machine learning with the best of agentic and generative AI to ensure that any new solutions are fully reliable. Given SAS’s deep experience working in high-risk decision making environments, the company understands the stakes organizations face and so would never compromise on reliability, Harris said.

In addition to the agentic AI work, Harris highlighted the development of “digital twin” technology that allows customers to work with SAS to develop digital models of a physical system or environment. Such a program enables deep study of a factory, for example, to identify inefficiencies or problems and test out process improvements. This technology has already been put to use by SAS clients, and the results have been significant.

On the absolute cutting edge of technology, SAS is engaged in significant research on quantum computing that could ultimately lead to solutions for pernicious optimization problems plaguing businesses, sciences, and more.

“We’re doing some groundbreaking work with quantum,” Harris said.

The Value of Innovation

As SAS charts out its technological future, the company is also weighing potentially going public in the future. SAS kicked off an initial public offering (IPO) readiness initiative in recent years, and has been honing its internal processes to give it the option to potentially go public.

Day, who is leading that process, said the company has the “benefit of patience” after 50 straight years of profitability, no debt, and no prior outside investments. That has allowed SAS to make any IPO decision from the position of strength.

As SAS Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Matt Parson put it, the company views any potential public offering as one potential step along the way – not a destination in and of itself. But while the current plan is to give the business “maximum optionality,” Parson also acknowledged that many public investors would be excited at the prospect of owning shares of SAS.

“The AI and data space we’re in is growing double digits every year and, even within that sector, SAS has a unique and compelling market opportunity,” said Parson, noting that the near-universality of SAS software among the Fortune 500 demonstrates the institutional trust the company has built over 50 years.

According to Parson, the investment thesis for SAS boils down to a few factors. Firstly, the company’s 50 years of success means it has demonstrated a consistent track record of earning customer trust throughout myriad technological shifts.

“From punchcards to mainframes and all the way through AI today, we have managed to continue to stay relevant and thrive in every one of those environments,” he explained. “That history and consistency is well established, and it is not a mystery what an investor would get with SAS because we've proven it time and time again.”

Secondly, Parson said, is the specific opportunity SAS has today around AI and other advanced technologies – in particular how the company’s focus on solving customer problems has meant trusted enterprise-ready solutions. “I would absolutely put our technology up against anybody in our space,” he said.

Finally, SAS currently sees meaningful growth potential from its current size, which would mean real value creation in coming years.

Learn more about SAS’s 50 years of innovation here.

Information is provided for educational purposes only. The content does not attempt to examine all the facts and circumstances which may be relevant to any particular company, industry or security mentioned herein and nothing contained herein should be construed as legal or investment advice. Nasdaq does not recommend or endorse any securities offering; you are urged to read the company’s SEC filings, undertake your own due diligence and carefully evaluate any companies before investing. ADVICE FROM A SECURITIES PROFESSIONAL IS STRONGLY ADVISED.