During this week's THINK 2025 annual event, IBM unveiled a series of new AI capabilities, enhanced partnerships, and robust infrastructure, demonstrating the company's full commitment to enterprise AI solutions.
From five-minute AI agents to hybrid cloud revolution, IBM suggests it's time to move beyond superficial AI experimentation and focus on delivering tangible results.
"The era of AI experimentation is over," stated IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna during the event. "Today's competitive advantage comes from purpose-built AI integrations that drive measurable business outcomes."
Actionable AI Agents Beyond Conversational Interfaces
IBM positions its new suite of agent capabilities in Watson Orchestrate as the core of next-generation workplace AI. Unlike traditional chatbots, these new agents are built for action rather than just conversation.
Need an agent to identify sales leads in Salesforce, handle HR issues in Slack, or manage procurement workflows in Oracle? IBM claims you can build such agents within five minutes using either no-code or professional coding tools. The Watson Orchestrate platform connects with over 80 business applications including Microsoft, ServiceNow, and Workday.
To simplify deployment, IBM has also launched an agent catalog containing more than 150 pre-built agents and tools from partners like Box, Mastercard, and Symplistic.ai.
Oracle + IBM: A Powerful New AI Alliance
In a significant partnership expansion, IBM is collaborating with Oracle to bring Watsonx Orchestrate to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), starting July. This integration aims to streamline how companies use AI across both Oracle and non-Oracle applications.
"AI delivers its most impactful value when it works seamlessly across the business," said Greg Pavlik, Executive Vice President of OCI AI and Data Management Services at Oracle. "Our expanded partnership will give customers new ways to transform their businesses through AI."
Under the agreement, IBM's Granite AI models will be available within Oracle's AI tools, and watsonx.ai is now certified to run on OCI, allowing AI deployments closer to enterprise data and applications.
Hybrid Integration for the AI Era
Integration remains one of the most challenging obstacles for enterprise AI. To address this, IBM introduced webMethods Hybrid Integration, a unified platform connecting APIs, applications, events, files, and even mainframe data across hybrid cloud environments.
IBM's hybrid integration approach utilizes AI-powered automation processes, from generating natural language integrations to managing APIs and B2B data flows.
According to Forrester Consulting research, companies using IBM's webMethods tools achieved a 176% return on investment (ROI) over three years, reduced downtime by 40%, and saved 67% of time on simple projects.
Transforming Unstructured Data into AI Fuel
IBM's updated watsonx.data aims to solve enterprises' persistent challenge: unstructured data. Consider contracts, spreadsheets, presentations – all the content traditionally ignored by conventional systems.
The enhanced platform introduces a data lakehouse architecture, AI-driven insights, and easier connections to AI agents. IBM claims these improvements can increase AI accuracy by up to 40% compared to traditional Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) methods.
To advance this mission, IBM is acquiring DataStax, known for its expertise in unstructured data and vector search capabilities, while integrating with Meta's Llama Stack for open AI deployments.
A New Engine for Enterprise AI: LinuxONE 5
Behind all these AI tools lies powerful computing capability. IBM launched LinuxONE 5, its next-generation Linux server designed for large-scale AI workloads capable of running up to 450 billion inference operations daily.
This powerful solution combines security, energy efficiency, and scalability. IBM states migrating from x86 to LinuxONE 5 can reduce total cost of ownership by up to 44% over five years. It includes built-in AI accelerators and quantum-safe cryptography designed to "address quantum-driven cybersecurity attacks."
Agent AI in the Enterprise
From consulting services to integrated platforms, IBM consolidates all its initiatives under the "Agent AI" strategy. IBM Consulting assists clients in adopting this model, including migrating legacy workloads to Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization on OCI.
"Agents are becoming a strategic advantage for organizations to optimize operations and deliver better customer and employee experiences," said Ritu Jyoti, Group Vice President at IDC, in the IBM/Oracle press release. "IBM's Agent AI approach with Oracle represents a leading example of orchestrating agent workflows across systems
