This article contains the following sections:

 

Problem

You have a licensed and deployed SAS solution (for example, SAS^® Visual Analytics) and expect SAS Viya Copilot to be available. However, SAS Viya Copilot is not present after deployment or upgrade, particularly in environments that run SAS^® Viya^® 2026.03 LTS.

Symptoms

You might encounter one or more of the following symptoms:

• SAS Viya Copilot is not available in the user interface.
• SAS Viya Copilot functionality is missing, despite having a supported SAS product such as SAS Visual Analytics.
• The sas-gen-ai-gateway deployment unit (DU) is not present in the environment.
• Documentation or previous communications suggest that SAS Viya Copilot should be available, but the deployment does not include the required services.

Cause

Historically, SAS Viya Copilot functionality was only available to customers licensed for specific offerings, including the following:

• SAS Viya
• SAS Viya Advanced
• SAS Viya Enterprise
• SAS^® Visual Investigator
• offerings that contain one of these solution packages

Beginning with SAS^® Viya^® Stable 2026.06, the gen-ai-gateway deployment unit was added to Viya Common Foundation (VCF). Since the genAI-gateway contains the service required to enable SAS Viya Copilot, this change expanded SAS Viya Copilot eligibility to additional offerings that include VCF.

The SAS Viya 2026.03 LTS release does not contain this packaging change because the LTS snapshot was finalized before the genAI-gateway was added to VCF.

As a result:

• Customers running SAS Viya 2026.03 LTS who do not have one of the historically SAS Viya Copilot-enabled offerings should not expect SAS Viya Copilot to be available.
• Customers running SAS Viya Stable 2026.06 or later might have access to SAS Viya Copilot through the updated VCF packaging.

Verification

Step 1: Identify Your Release

Determine whether you are running one of these releases:

• SAS Viya 2026.03 LTS
• SAS Viya 2026.06 Stable or later

Step 2: Review Licensed Offerings

Verify which SAS offerings are licensed and deployed.

If you have one of the following offerings, SAS Viya Copilot availability might already be expected regardless of the VCF packaging change:

• SAS Viya
• SAS Viya Advanced
• SAS Viya Enterprise
• SAS Visual Investigator

Step 3: Verify Deployment Units

Confirm whether the environment includes the gen-ai-gateway DU. Contact SAS Technical Support for assistance if needed. 

If the deployment does not contain the genAI-gateway service, SAS Viya Copilot cannot be enabled.

Resolution

Option 1: Remain on LTS

If you run SAS Viya 2026.03 LTS, you can remain on the LTS track and upgrade to SAS^® Viya^® 2026.09 LTS when it becomes available.

The SAS Viya 2026.09 LTS release is expected to include the VCF packaging changes introduced in SAS Viya Stable 2026.06.

Option 2: Upgrade to a Supported Stable Release

You can upgrade to any Stable release beginning with SAS Viya Stable 2026.06, which includes the updated VCF packaging that contains the genAI-gateway DU.

When SAS Viya 2026.09 LTS becomes available, the following supported Stable releases should include the VCF:

• 2026.11
• 2026.10
• 2026.09
• 2026.08

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is SAS Viya Copilot not available in SAS Viya 2026.03 LTS?

The genAI-gateway DU was added to VCF after the SAS Viya 2026.03 LTS release snapshot was created. Therefore, the required component is not included in that LTS release.

Does having SAS Visual Analytics automatically provide SAS Viya Copilot?

Not necessarily. Before SAS Viya Stable 2026.06, SAS Viya Copilot availability depended on specific licensed offerings rather than the presence of SAS Visual Analytics alone.

Which release first included the VCF packaging change?

The change became effective in SAS Viya Stable 2026.06.

Which LTS release is expected to include the change?

The next LTS expected to include the updated packaging (VCF) is SAS Viya 2026.09 LTS.

Key Takeaway

If you are running SAS Viya 2026.03 LTS and are licensed only for offerings that gained SAS Viya Copilot support through the VCF packaging update introduced in SAS Viya Stable 2026.06, the absence of SAS Viya Copilot is expected behavior. You must either upgrade to a Stable release beginning with SAS Viya Stable 2026.06 or wait for SAS Viya 2026.09 LTS to obtain the updated VCF package that includes the genAI-gateway service.