IBM's Latest Consulting Services: Combining Human Experts with Digital Workers to Drive Enterprise AI Development

IBM has unveiled its internal artificial intelligence-powered delivery platform as part of a new consulting offering for enterprise clients, aiming to accelerate the deployment of custom AI models and services.

This new service, named IBM Enterprise Advantage, combines the expertise of IBM consultants and provides a suite of AI tools and technologies to support enterprises in developing and scaling their own AI initiatives.

Essentially, it is a client-facing version of IBM Consulting Advantage, an internal platform serving the company's over 160,000 consultants. It is designed to augment these experts' work by providing them with a set of AI assistants, agents, and generative AI applications, enabling them to build solutions for clients more rapidly and efficiently.

IBM launched Consulting Advantage in January 2024, offering its consultants a library of proprietary and third-party large language models, deployable applications, and industry-specific starter kits to support their advisory work.

The company is now making many of these tools directly available to clients through IBM Enterprise Advantage. Clients will be able to use the service to redesign existing workflows and enhance them with AI agents and automation without requiring significant re-architecting. Consequently, they can maintain workloads on their existing cloud infrastructure, be it Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, or other platforms.

As a consulting service, clients retain access to IBM's expert consultants but can also engage more proactively. IBM Enterprise Advantage provides an expanding library of AI agents and applications, many tailored for specific industries.

Mohamad Ali, Senior Vice President of IBM Consulting, stated that while most organizations are eager to invest in AI, they struggle to derive tangible value from it. He acknowledged that IBM faced similar challenges early on but addressed them through IBM Consulting Advantage. "[It] gave us a proven playbook to help clients succeed," he said. "Enterprise Advantage brings this framework to clients by combining human expertise with digital workers and ready-to-use AI assets so they can achieve meaningful impact."

Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research, noted that this new service should appeal to any enterprise seeking to leverage AI for competitive advantage and accelerated business operations. "Such companies need three things: proven AI models, an AI platform, and AI services, which is exactly what IBM is providing here," he said. "A platform that can bring AI models and services together will be crucial for enterprise adoption."

Early adopters of the new service include education services and publishing company Pearson Plc, which used IBM Enterprise Advantage to develop a custom AI platform. This platform integrates human expertise with agentic AI assistants to manage its daily business operations and enhance decision-making.

Another client in the manufacturing sector is using IBM Enterprise Advantage to accelerate its generative AI assistant strategy, according to IBM. This unnamed client has successfully identified high-value AI use cases, deployed targeted prototypes, and is now planning to scale these assistants within a secure and governed environment that complies with its stringent regulatory framework.