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 is IBM's umbrella brand for its enterprise AI and data platform, launched in 2023. It is not a single product but a family: watsonx.ai for building and deploying foundation models and generative AI applications, watsonx.data for an open data store, and watsonx.governance for AI lifecycle governance, with watsonx Assistant and watsonx Orchestrate built on top. IBM previewed an IBM i-specific watsonx Code Assistant for i in November 2025, but that track was superseded by IBM Bob, which reached general availability in March 2026 outside the watsonx brand and shipped Bob 2.0 with the Bob Premium Package for i on June 24, 2026. The two brands finally met in August 2026, when watsonx Orchestrate added a Build with Bob option to its Create an agent dialog, listed by IBM as a preview. No watsonx product ships a Db2 for i connector.
Related Terms
watsonx.ai
The studio component of watsonx for building, tuning, and deploying foundation models and generative AI applications, including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) against enterprise data.
watsonx Assistant
IBM's general-purpose conversational AI platform for building customer-facing and employee-facing chatbots and virtual assistants; not IBM i-specific.
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.
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.
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.