At its annual THINK event, IBM launched a comprehensive set of hybrid technologies aimed at simplifying and scaling enterprise adoption of generative Artificial Intelligence. Recognizing the projection that more than one billion apps will be created by 2028 and the increasing fragmentation of business environments, IBM is focusing on integration, orchestration, and improved data readiness to help companies build and operationalize Artificial Intelligence agents using their own enterprise data. An IBM CEO study cited in the announcement notes a doubling of expected Artificial Intelligence investment growth rates over the next two years, but also highlights significant ROI challenges, with only 25% of current projects meeting expectations. IBM´s strategy combines agent capabilities, hybrid platforms, and consulting to bridge these gaps.
Central to the rollout is watsonx Orchestrate, which provides tools for developing and deploying Artificial Intelligence agents compatible with over 80 leading business applications. These capabilities include rapid agent building—both no-code and pro-code options, pre-built domain-focused agents (such as HR, sales, and procurement), “agent orchestration” for managing multi-agent systems, and agent observability features that offer performance monitoring and lifecycle governance. IBM is also introducing an Agent Catalog that simplifies access to more than 150 agents and partner-built tools, including integrations with Salesforce and Slack. To address integration challenges across hybrid cloud and on-premises environments, IBM unveiled webMethods Hybrid Integration, a platform designed to automate connections between apps, APIs, events, and partners. A Forrester study indicates that organizations using these capabilities could achieve a 176% ROI, a 40% reduction in downtime, and substantial time savings on both complex and simple projects.
IBM is tackling the issue of unstructured data access for generative Artificial Intelligence by upgrading watsonx.data. The enhanced service consolidates open data lakehouse technology with data fabric features like lineage tracking and governance, supporting unification and activation of data from disparate sources and formats. New tools such as watsonx.data integration and watsonx.data intelligence will further orchestrate and extract insights from unstructured data. These offerings are bolstered by IBM’s intent to acquire DataStax for advanced vector search and integration into Meta’s Llama Stack. On the infrastructure front, IBM announced the LinuxONE 5 platform, supporting up to 450 billion Artificial Intelligence inference operations daily, advanced on-chip accelerators, confidential containers, and quantum-safe encryption. The company is also expanding collaborations with AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and CoreWeave to strengthen compute and storage solutions for Artificial Intelligence-driven workloads. Key agent, data, and integration technologies are expected to be available beginning June 2025.
