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IBM TechXchange 2026: What IBM i AI Watchers Should Expect in Atlanta

Updated September 2, 2026

IBM TechXchange 2026 runs October 26 to 29 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, and for an IBM i shop the reason to pay attention is precedent. Project Bob was unveiled at TechXchange in October 2025 and reached general availability five months later.

Everything below is labeled for what it is. IBM has not published an IBM i AI keynote agenda, and none of the expectations in this article are announcements. They are what the shipped 2026 record makes reasonable to watch for.

What IBM has actually published

The event is organized into five content areas: AI Applications, aimed at developers and teams building intelligent applications, agents, automated workflows and system integrations; Data Management; Hybrid Cloud Management; Infrastructure, which is where IBM Power sits alongside IBM Z, LinuxONE and IBM Storage; and Security and Governance. The format is hands-on labs, breakouts, demos, tech talks and certification testing, and a conference pass includes two complimentary onsite certification exam attempts.

The detail worth circling: IBM lists dedicated Bob sessions, and IBM i development acceleration across Power environments is one of the named tracks for them, next to IBM Z modernization and Java modernization. That is published, not inferred. Everything after this section is expectation.

What is realistically on the table

The next step for Bob and the Premium Package for i

Bob went 1.0 in March and 2.0 in June, with the Premium Package for i adding roughly 40 skills and 30 IBM i tools. IBM has announced no further release. The thing to listen for is not a version number, it is whether any Bob component moves onto the IBM i itself instead of running from a developer workstation.

Whether Build with Bob leaves preview

The August watsonx Orchestrate release added Build with Bob to the Create an agent dialog as a preview on IBM Cloud and AWS. General availability, or better, an Orchestrate tool that reaches Db2 for i without you writing the connector, would be the single most useful thing IBM could say in Atlanta for IBM i shops.

Power Autonomous Operations, one month after GA

General availability is September 23, a month before the show. Atlanta is the first venue where customers can ask what the agent is allowed to do to an IBM i partition, whether it drives the HMC or PowerVC, and how it is licensed. Those answers are not published yet.

The Db2 for i vector question

Db2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows 12.1 has a native VECTOR type. Db2 for i does not, and IBM's stated direction as of May 2026 is OpenSearch on Power as the vector and hybrid search layer. Either a vector type appears or the OpenSearch design gets formalized. Both would settle a design a lot of shops are currently improvising.

The Power roadmap after the S1112

The entry Power 11 server shipped in July with on-chip Matrix Math Acceleration for local inference. Where the rest of the line goes is an infrastructure-track question, and hardware coverage belongs to our sibling Power 11 site rather than here.

What would count as news

A Bob demo converting fixed-format RPG is not news in October 2026. It has been generally available since March and we have all seen it.

Four things would be. A supported reference design that connects a watsonx Orchestrate agent to Db2 for i through the IBM i MCP Server, because today every piece of that chain exists and IBM has never published them assembled. A general availability date and an authority model for the MCP Server itself, which has been in beta since October 2025 and is the piece a security officer has to approve. An answer on vectors in Db2 for i, in either direction. And Power Autonomous Operations documentation that names IBM i explicitly rather than describing the Power estate in general.

Anything in that list changes a project plan. A new demo does not.

How to work the week

Take your own code to the Bob session

The published sessions cover IBM i development acceleration. A demo on IBM's sample library tells you nothing about your 1994 order-entry program. Bring the ugliest thing you own.

Ask the authority question out loud

Every agent story on this platform eventually hits the same wall: which user profile does the agent run under, what can it write, and what does the audit trail look like. Ask it at the Db2 for i and MCP Server sessions, and write down who answered.

Treat preview labels as preview labels

Build with Bob is a preview and AgentOps is generally available, in the same release. That distinction survives a conference keynote, and budgets built on the wrong half of it do not.

We will update our IBM i AI watch list in place as announcements land during the week rather than posting a second preview. Background reading before Atlanta: IBM Bob explained, Bob, watsonx Orchestrate and the IBM i MCP Server, and RAG on IBM i: where do the vectors live.

Session catalogs and speakers change, and IBM has committed to none of the expectations in this article. Dates, location, content areas and the existence of Bob sessions come from IBM's own event pages; confirm the current agenda there before booking travel around any single session.

Sources

Related Tools & Vendors

IBM Bob (Project Bob)

IBM's generally available AI coding agent for IBM i. Bob 2.0 and the Bob Premium Package for i shipped June 24, 2026, adding a Db2 for i Database Mode, about 30 IBM i tools, and direct work on source where it lives. Reported pricing from $20 to $240 per month.

IBM watsonx Orchestrate

IBM's AI agent and workflow platform, and the first watsonx product with an official link to IBM's IBM i coding agent. The August 2026 release added a Build with Bob preview that launches IBM Bob to generate agents and tools from natural language. Still no IBM i or Db2 for i connector in the box.

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