IBM i AI Software Authority

It covers several distinct things that get lumped together: IBM's watsonx product family (watsonx.ai, watsonx Assistant, watsonx Orchestrate), IBM Bob (IBM's GA AI coding agent for IBM i), the IBM i MCP Server (an open-source, beta AI agent connectivity layer for Db2 for i data), on-chip Matrix Math Acceleration in Power10/Power11 hardware, and AI-assisted RPG and COBOL modernization tooling from third-party vendors. See our AI on IBM i overview for how these pieces fit together.

IBM Bob (originally shown as "Project Bob") is IBM's generally available AI coding agent for IBM i, built as a fork of Visual Studio Code and tuned for RPG, COBOL, CL, DDS and SQL. It reached GA 1.0 on March 24, 2026, then Bob 2.0 and the IBM i-specific Bob Premium Package for i on June 24, 2026. Bob 2.0 brought a 270,000-token context window, parallel tool calling, subagents, rollback and three modes; the Premium Package is what lets it read and write source directly in QSYS and the IFS, run CL and SQL, launch 5250 sessions and work on Db2 for i in Database Mode. It can explain code, generate RPG from plain-language prompts, convert fixed-format to free-format, produce documentation and write unit tests. Since August 2026 it can also be launched from watsonx Orchestrate to build agents, currently as a preview. Reported pricing runs from 20 to 240 dollars a month.

Fixed-to-free-format conversion is one of IBM Bob's modernization capabilities, delivered today through the Bob Premium Package for i, generally available since June 24, 2026. Treat it as developer-assisted conversion rather than a fully automatic, unattended process. Confirm current supported RPG constructs and expected developer review effort directly with IBM before scoping a large-scale conversion project around it. This capability was originally previewed under the watsonx Code Assistant for i name, which never shipped independently.

It is an open-source, IBM-published server implementing the Model Context Protocol (MCP), letting AI agents and LLMs such as Claude, GPT-4, and local LLMs query Db2 for i data, inspect system objects, and take defined actions on IBM i using natural language, over a Mapepire connection. It is in beta since October 2025. See our IBM i MCP Server explainer for how it differs from a machine learning feature.

Matrix Math Acceleration (MMA) is an on-chip feature in IBM Power10 and Power11 processors that speeds up the matrix math operations AI inferencing depends on, without a separate GPU. You do not strictly need it to use cloud-based watsonx products, but it matters if you want to run AI inferencing workloads on the same physical server already running your IBM i partitions.

General-purpose AI assistants can help with RPG to some degree since RPG appears in their broad training data, but none of them are trained specifically on RPG the way IBM Bob is, and none integrate directly with the IBM i development environment. Treat them as a general coding aid a developer might use ad hoc, not an IBM i-specific or fixed-to-free-format conversion tool. See our AI code assistants comparison for a fuller breakdown.