watsonx Orchestrate
IBM's AI agent and automation platform for orchestrating multi-step business workflows across enterprise applications. Since August 2026 it can launch IBM Bob from its Create an agent dialog through a Build with Bob preview, but it still ships no IBM i or Db2 for i connector.
What Orchestrate does
Orchestrate lets you build AI agents that carry out multi-step work across your business apps. Agents are put together from three kinds of parts.
- Prebuilt skills from IBM's library
- Custom tools you write
- MCP servers
What changed in August 2026
August 2026 release
| Change | Status |
|---|---|
| Build with Bob option in the Create an agent dialog | Preview on IBM Cloud and AWS |
| AgentOps | Generally available on IBM Cloud |
| More than one knowledge source per agent | Generally available |
Build with Bob is the first official link between IBM Bob and the watsonx brand. It connects two build tools. It does not connect an agent to IBM i data.
How to reach Db2 for i from Orchestrate
- Give the agent a tool that calls the open-source IBM i MCP Server
- Or write your own integration code
Related Terms
watsonx
IBM's platform for AI and data, spanning watsonx.ai (foundation models and generative AI), watsonx.data (data store), and watsonx.governance (AI governance), with watsonx Assistant and watsonx Orchestrate built on top.
watsonx Assistant
IBM's general-purpose conversational AI platform for building customer-facing and employee-facing chatbots and virtual assistants; not IBM i-specific.
Build with Bob
An option added to watsonx Orchestrate's Create an agent dialog in the August 2026 release, listed by IBM as a preview, that launches IBM Bob into a workspace wired to your Orchestrate tenant to generate agents, tools and workflows from natural language.
IBM Bob (Project Bob)
IBM's generally available AI coding agent for IBM i, built as a fork of Visual Studio Code and tuned for RPG, CL, DDS, and SQL. Reached GA on March 24, 2026; Bob 2.0 and the IBM i-specific Bob Premium Package for i shipped June 24, 2026.
IBM i MCP Server
An open-source, IBM-published server implementing the Model Context Protocol (MCP), letting AI agents and LLMs query Db2 for i data and take defined actions on IBM i using natural language. In beta since October 2025.