AI agent capabilities in IBM Sterling Order Management System

Artificial intelligence is a core part of IBM Sterling® Order Management System (OMS). Embedded watsonx™‑powered AI agents accelerate work, improve decision‑making, and surface insights across administration, fulfillment, and customer service. You can extend OMS and integrate your own externally-developed AI agents by using the Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. This capability is available in the IBM Sterling Order Management System – Agentic Toolkit Add‑on (Essentials Edition).

This topic is your central hub for OMS AI capabilities, with links to the AI agents that are available in Self Service, Order Hub, and IBM® Sterling™ Call Center.

Note: AI agent trial program now available. Access and explore the latest IBM Sterling Order Management System AI agents for two months in a development or preproduction environment through our AI agent trial program. We also invite you to share your insights, and partner with us to shape the future of AI agent-powered support. Request access to the AI agent trials through IBM Support. For more information, see Requesting access to the AI agent trials.
Note: The AI agent trial program is designed for IBM Sterling Order Management System SaaS customers today, with plans to extend support to on-premises environments in the future.

What's included in this topic

This overview introduces AI agents across OMS and provides:

  • A unified explanation of how AI agents work and where they appear in the product.
  • Summaries of AI agent capabilities in Self Service, Order Hub, and IBM Sterling Call Center.
  • Links to AI agent topics for each application.
  • An overview of how AI fits in the OMS architecture.
  • How to get started and enable AI agents.
  • Links to related learning resources.

About AI agents in OMS

IBM Sterling Order Management System (OMS) includes powerful, embedded AI agents that help teams work smarter, resolve issues faster, and unlock insights instantly. These AI agents combine generative AI, contextual intelligence, and OMS-specific domain knowledge.

AI agents support:

  • Order management
  • Inventory and promising
  • Fulfillment operations
  • Customer service workflows

These AI agents perform goal-driven, context-aware, and policy-aligned tasks by leveraging OMS data, workflows, and business rules. They provide decision support, exception handling, guided actions, and intelligent task automation.

AI agents operate within the OMS SaaS governance, security, entitlement, and control framework. AI agents respect roles and permissions, use audit logging, and follow validation and business rules to help keep operations safe and compliant.

OMS includes embedded agentic AI that helps improve fulfillment accuracy, streamline operations, and elevate customer experience across complex omnichannel environments. AI agents run natively within the OMS ecosystem, applying domain‑specific intelligence, policy awareness, and real‑time decisioning to enhance both operational efficiency and customer service outcomes. These AI agents come embedded in Order Hub and IBM Sterling Call Center and can further be embedded in any omnichannel user interface such as any eCommerce channel or customer relationship management (CRM) application.

Beyond these embedded AI agents, the OMS governance, security, entitlement, and control framework also enables clients to integrate externally developed AI agents by using the Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. MCP integration lets clients securely connect custom or third-party AI agents to OMS SaaS, access real-time data, initiate governed transactions, and extend internal AI platforms while preserving role-based access, audit logging, validation, and business rule enforcement.

IBM Sterling Call Center AI agents

Note: IBM Sterling Call Center is an add-on product. However, its AI capabilities are referenced here due to its close integration with order management.

AI agents in IBM Sterling Call Center help customer service representatives during interactions. They surface relevant information, suggest next‑best actions, and streamline access to knowledge. This helps customer service representatives resolve issues faster and with greater accuracy.

For more information about IBM Sterling Call Center AI agents, see IBM Sterling Call Center AI agents.

Order Hub AI agents

Order Hub includes AI agents that help fulfillment teams find orders, manage inventory allocations across segments, and assess supply risk. These AI agents support fulfillment managers and inventory planners with real‑time insights that improve decision‑making.

Order Hub AI agents help users search and analyze orders quickly. They explain inventory segmentation and allocation rules. They also flag potential supply shortfalls so that teams can drive more proactive and responsive fulfillment operations.

For more information about Order Hub AI agents, see Order Hub AI agents.

Self Service AI agents

Self Service includes system administration and performance AI agents that help system implementers manage and optimize their OMS environments. These Self Service AI agents streamline routine tasks, surface insights, and simplify troubleshooting.

Self Service AI agents assist with server management, scheduling, maintenance events, and queue configuration. They also provide fast access to logs, real‑time process monitoring, and performance‑based resource optimization. These capabilities reduce manual effort and enable more proactive, efficient system administration.

For more information about Self Service AI agents, see Self Service AI Agents.

MCP integration capabilities

MCP integration lets you connect custom or third-party AI agents to OMS SaaS. External AI agents can access real-time data, request guided actions, and initiate governed transactions. OMS maintains role-based access, audit logging, validation, and business rule enforcement.

Through the MCP server capabilities, clients can:
  • Connect custom or third‑party AI agents directly to the OMS SaaS environment.
  • Expose OMS data objects, workflows, APIs, and execution services under strict governance.
  • Provide real‑time order, inventory, promising, and fulfillment data to external AI agents.
  • Provide a way for AI agents to initiate transactions that align with OMS security and authorization models.
  • Maintain OMS as the system of record for all operational validation and processing.

MCP integration creates a flexible, enterprise‑safe mechanism for organizations that want to:

  • Extend their internal AI platforms into OMS.
  • Use proprietary or industry-specific AI models.
  • Integrate partner-developed or vendor-developed AI agents.
  • Maintain full architectural control while still leveraging OMS‑governed boundaries.

Governance and security

All MCP‑connected AI agents operate within the OMS governance and control framework, which applies the following controls to every action and data request:

  • Role-based access
  • Audit logging
  • Transaction validation
  • Business rules enforcement
  • Data security and privacy controls

These controls helps ensure that externally developed AI agents are consistent with OMS operational safeguards.

Getting started

Before you begin to use AI agents in IBM Sterling Order Management System, make sure that your environment is configured to support the AI capabilities. Self Service AI agents are available immediately, while others, such as those in Order Hub and IBM Sterling Call Center, must be enabled before they are available in the user interface.

Enabling Order HubAI agents
Order Hub AI agents require environment‑level configuration to enable chat‑based natural‑language interactions and route each user prompt to the correct AI agent.
For information about how to enable Order Hub AI agents, see Enabling Order Hub AI agents.
Enabling IBM Sterling Call Center AI agents
IBM Sterling Call Center AI agents must also be enabled before use.
For more information about how to enable IBM Sterling Call Center AI agents, see Enabling IBM Sterling Call Center AI agents.
Enabling MCP integration
To connect externally developed AI agents to OMS, you need to enable MCP integration. When you enable MCP, you define the server endpoint, set access scopes, and apply OMS roles and policies so that external AI agents operate within OMS controls.

Requesting access to the AI agent trials

To participate in the AI agent trials, request access through IBM Support.
  1. Click this link to open a Support case.
  2. For Type of support, select Product support.
  3. For Case title, enter Request access to AI agent trial program.
  4. For Product, enter either Order Management on Cloud (for Order Hub and Self Service AI agents) or Sterling Call Center on Cloud for Sterling Call Center AI agents.
  5. For Severity, select 4 - minimal impact.
  6. In the Case description, include the environment details about where you want to enable the AI agents (only available in lower environments, not production environments).
  7. Complete the remaining items in the case form and click Submit case.