The Statistical Analysis System (SAS) began as a project at North Carolina State University's agricultural department.

[7] In the early 1970s, the software was primarily leased to other agricultural departments[8] in order to analyze the effect soil, weather and seed varieties had on crop yields.

[12] Goodnight, Barr, Sall and another early participant, Jane Helwig, founded SAS Institute Inc. as a private company on July 1, 1976, in offices across the street from the university.

[6] During its first year of operation, SAS adopted a tradition of polling users for suggestions to improve the software through the SASware Ballot.

[14][15] Many of the company's employee perks, such as fresh fruit, reasonable work hours[3] and free M&M's every Wednesday became part of its practices that first year.

[20][21] Later that year, it began providing on-site daycare in order to keep an employee who had planned to leave her job to care for her child at home.

[24] The company considered making 25 percent of its ownership stake available on the stock market and providing employees with stock-options during the dot-com bubble before the following downturn, but ultimately chose not to.

[30] The European Court of Justice ruled that functionality and language elements[31] were not protected and the case was discussed in Oracle v. Google[32] SAS introduced its first reseller program intended to grow sales with small to medium-sized businesses in 2006.

[33][34] Leading up to 2007, SAS provided funding and curriculum assistance to help start the Master of Science in Analytics program at nearby North Carolina State University.

[35] The company's cloud-based products grew in revenues by 35 percent in 2014[36] and the construction of Building Q was completed late that year to house its corresponding operations.

The investment will also fund related initiatives such as acquisitions and the creation of education programs to teach the public about the applications of AI.

[41] This partnership has also facilitated co-engineering between the companies in the areas of generative AI and data management,[42] such as integration between OpenAI and SAS' analytical systems.

[45] In July 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported that the semiconductor giant Broadcom was in talks to acquire SAS.

[49] In May 2023, SAS announced its intentions to invest an additional $1 billion into AI applications for the banking, healthcare, and insurance industries over the next three years.

The company's chief technology officer Bryan Harris stated that "[we] think this is where the second leg of growth of SAS over the next 50 years is going to be.

[3][26] In 1994, Computerworld found that out of the world's 50 largest software companies, SAS spent 2.5 times the industry average on R&D.

[16] Employees are encouraged to work 35-hour weeks[16] and have free access to a recreation and fitness center[26] as well as life counseling services.

[60][61] 95 percent of a company's assets drive out the front gate every night, the CEO must see to it that they return the following day.SAS spokespeople say its employee benefits are provided for business, not altruistic, reasons.

[3] Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer from the Stanford Graduate School of Business estimated that the company saves $60–$80 million annually in expenses related to employee turnover.

[26][61] According to professor Jeffrey Pfeffer from Stanford, there are only three levels in the organization and CEO James Goodnight has 27 people who directly report to him.

It funds pilot programs for new education models, donates laptops and provides free online software for classrooms called Curriculum Pathways.

[55] The company is a founding partner of the Watt Family Innovation Center at Clemson University, providing funding, access to software, and research.

[66][67] It develops, supports and markets a suite of analytics software also called SAS (statistical analysis system), which captures, stores, modifies, analyzes and presents data.

[15][89] Some of the uses for SAS' software include analyzing financial transactions for indications of fraud, optimizing prices for retailers, or evaluating the results of clinical trials.