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.
watsonx Orchestrate lets organizations build and deploy AI agents that automate multi-step workflows across business applications, using a library of prebuilt skills, custom tools and MCP servers. The August 2026 release added a Build with Bob option to the Create an agent dialog, which launches IBM Bob into a workspace connected to the Orchestrate environment to generate agents, tools and workflows from natural language. IBM lists that option as a preview on IBM Cloud and AWS. The same release brought AgentOps to general availability on IBM Cloud and removed the previous limit of one knowledge source per agent, both GA. Build with Bob is the first official link between Bob and the watsonx brand, but it connects two build tools rather than an agent and IBM i data. Orchestrate remains a general-purpose product with no IBM i connector, so reaching Db2 for i means an agent tool that calls the open-source IBM i MCP Server, or integration code of your own.
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.