What's new and changed in watsonx Orchestrate

watsonx Orchestrate updates can include new features and fixes. Releases are listed in reverse chronological order so that the latest release is at the beginning of the topic.

You can see a list of the new features for the platform and all of the services at What's new in IBM Software Hub.

Installing or upgrading watsonx Orchestrate

Ready to install or upgrade watsonx Orchestrate?

  • To install watsonx Orchestrate along with the other IBM® Software Hub services, see Installing IBM Software Hub.
  • To upgrade watsonx Orchestrate along with the other IBM Software Hub services, see Upgrading IBM Software Hub.
  • To install or upgrade watsonx Orchestrate independently, see watsonx Orchestrate.
    Remember: All of the IBM Software Hub components that are associated with an instance of IBM Software Hub must be installed at the same version.

IBM Software Hub Version 5.1.3

A new version of watsonx Orchestrate was released in April 2025 with IBM Software Hub 5.1.3.

Operand version: 5.4.0

This release includes the following changes:

New features
This release of watsonx Orchestrate includes the following features:
Create multiple instances of watsonx Orchestrate
You can now deploy more than one instance of the watsonx Orchestrate service on IBM Software Hub. For more information, see Multitenancy support and Before you begin section of Creating a service instance for watsonx Orchestrate.
Manage user groups through IBM Cloud Pak® for Data
You can now create and maintain user groups for watsonx Orchestrate by using the IBM Cloud Pak for Data access management interface. For each user group, you can designate an administrator, builder, or user role and then assign LDAP users. Based on their group membership, users inherit the assigned role and permissions within the watsonx Orchestrate interface.

If a user belongs to multiple user groups with different roles assigned in the same watsonx Orchestrate instance, the user can be granted the highest privileged role when start the instance. The privilege hierarchy is: Admin > Builder > User. See how to add user group in Managing user groups topic.

Turn chat responses on or off for each tenant
Tenant administrators can now use the API to enable or disable LLM chat responses on a tenant-by-tenant basis.
Simplify app connections with preconfigured client credentials
Builders can now configure the connection details for prebuilt apps, such as Client ID and Client Secret, directly when setting up the app's endpoints in a tenant. For more information, see What's new in IBM watsonx Orchestrate.
Register an external agent
You can now use the API to register an agent that is built in watsonx.ai™ Agent lab with watsonx Orchestrate by specifying the property provider as wx.ai in the request. For more information, see Register an external agent in the watsonx Orchestrate API documentation.
Updates
The following updates were introduced in this release:
Interact with AI agents in Japanese
You can now interact with an AI agent in the Japanese language. Use Japanese to use generative AI capabilities, prompt AI tasks, and run AI assistants and skills.
Issues fixed in this release
The following issues were fixed in this release:
Fixed the issue when CR was stuck in the InProgress state when upgrading
The llama model was not listed in the model list
Skill creation job was not getting completed
Security issues fixed in this release
The following security issues were fixed in this release:

IBM Software Hub Version 5.1.2

A new version of watsonx Orchestrate was released in March 2025 with IBM Software Hub 5.1.2.

Operand version: 5.3.0

This release includes the following changes:

New features
This release of watsonx Orchestrate includes the following features:
Add the AI assistant to the chat and use
You can add the AI assistant from the AI assistant builder or from the IBM watsonx Assistant to the AI chat to help your users to resolve specific use-cases through the chat. The AI assistants that you add to the chat are available to all users in the tenant. See details in Managing AI assistants in the AI chat.

As a user, you can interact with AI-powered assistants, AI agents, and skills by using the AI chat. With this chat, you can complete various generative artificial intelligence (AI) tasks, or even use AI assistants to perform more complex tasks like sending emails or posting job requisitions. To use the AI assistant in chat, see Using the AI chat.

Save secret skill credentials in the external vault
You can now save your secrets skill credentials in the external vault where you want, instead saving in the default internal vault. As a watsonx Orchestrate tenant admin, you can configure the external vault to your watsonx Orchestrate instance for both imported skills or custom skills and pre-built skills.
Currently, you can use CyberArk vault, which is supported in watsonx Orchestrate.
Manage skill connections
As a builder you can now manage the connections of the Team skills, of skill sets from AI assistants, and of the watsonx Orchestrate Agent Skill set. You can:
  • Configure an application credential as either Team credentials or Member credentials.
  • Set connection parameters, such as client ID and client secret, as the required parameters for app integration.
  • Connect to an app or configure the app connection either from the Skill catalog page or through the chat.
Updates
The following updates were introduced in this release:
Evaluate testing message limits
You do not have to limit on the number of tests in a test run to evaluate and analyze your AI assistant’s performance but each test can include a maximum of 250 messages. For more information, see Testing limits for the set of data.
Experience the updated interface
See changes in user interface usability.
Issues fixed in this release
The following issues were fixed in this release:
Manage collaborators option was not displayed in the project tile of the Skill studio page
The version was not displayed for a published project
The App Connect backup script that is documented that was not working in completed status
When you provided an input in the chat and you don't receive a response within a reasonable time frame, the chat was in a still working state
After you restart the cluster, IBM Software Hub did not find the route and the CR is failed
Security issues fixed in this release
The following security issues were fixed in this release:

IBM Software Hub Version 5.1.1

A new version of watsonx Orchestrate was released in February 2025 with IBM Software Hub 5.1.1.

Operand version: 5.2.0

This release includes the following changes:

New features
This release of watsonx Orchestrate includes the following features:
Enhanced skill flows can now include conditional branches
When creating business automation, builders can now include conditional branches that enable users to adapt their skill flows depending on a particular condition or the output of a given action. Builders can now use one path from the multiple paths options for users to follow, depending on certain conditions. By using conditional branches in your skill flows, you can achieve seamless end-to-end flows.
For example, in an accident insurance scenario, the insurance operator needs to contact the customer to inform them about policy changes. If the customer's preferred communication method fails, then the operator needs to switch to an alternative means of communication.
Integrate your AI assistant builder with Slack
You can now integrate your AI assistant builder with Slack. When integrated, depending on the events that you configure the AI assistant builder to support, your AI assistant builder can respond to questions that are asked in direct messages or in channels where the AI assistant builder is directly mentioned. For more information, see Integrating with Slack.
Integrated Serviceability
If you face any issues while opening a watsonx Orchestrate instance, experience functionality problems, or notice that it is not in a healthy state, you can download the specific watsonx Orchestrate logs that are needed for the support team to troubleshoot the issues offline. To download go to Support > Diagnosis > Select watsonx Orchestrate and download the issue logs and send them to IBM support.
Custom signed certificates
watsonx Orchestrate supports usage of custom signed certificates from 5.1.1. When you require to use custom CA certificates or self-signed certificates in watsonx Orchestrate, you can now follow this documentation Creating a secret to store shared custom certificates.
Updates
The following updates were introduced in this release:
Updated LLM models for Conversational search
As granite-13b-chat-v2 is deprecated, you can now use the updated foundation model granite-3-8b-instruct for Conversational search. For more information, see  Mirroring images directly to the private container registry.
Japanese language support for watsonx Orchestrate
Beginning in version 5.1.1, you can use the Japanese language in watsonx Orchestrate.
Issues fixed in this release
The following issues were fixed in this release:
When you click watsonx Orchestrate instance button, you cannot view the instance page
When you create a new project in gen AI component by adding a workflow, you cannot add a skill to the catalog and see an error
When you are in AI Assistant builder, go to Skill studio and come back to AI Assistant builder, you see the error - Resource not found
Decision with choice list output doesn't show results when started from AI Assistant
Task is not getting refreshed in the task activity when you start Workflow with the remote skill from AI chat
Customer-reported issues fixed in this release
For a list of customer-reported issues that were fixed in this release, see the Fix List for IBM Cloud Pak for Data on the IBM Support website.
Security issues fixed in this release
The following security issues were fixed in this release:

IBM Software Hub Version 5.1.0

A new version of watsonx Orchestrate was released in December 2024 with IBM Software Hub 5.1.0.

Operand version: 5.1.0

This release includes the following changes:

New features
This release of watsonx Orchestrate includes the following features:
Create projects in skill studio to automate complex tasks and processes
As a builder, you can create projects in Skill studio and publish them as skills to the Skills and apps page, where you enhance the skills and make them available in the skill catalog. You can use the skill by entering a phrase in the watsonx Orchestrate chat or by adding these skill as actions on AI assistants. You can create skills from types like workflows, decision models, and generative AI responses. For details, see https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/watsonx/watson-orchestrate/current?topic=building-projects.
Use formatting for skill descriptions
As a builder, you can create skills that have skill input descriptions in plain text. You can format any of the descriptions by using bold, italics, underline, and you can add hyperlinks.
Use slot logic for validations
As a builder, when you enhance a conversational skill, you can specify validations on the inputs (slot filling) that are obtained from the nonlinear multi-turn conversation interaction.
Updates
The following updates were introduced in this release:
Configure for conversational skill
By using Skill configuration, as an admin user, you can set the default for the maximum number of fields to consider a skill to be conversational.
Customize server URL to import skill specification
When you test the skills in multiple environments, each environment can have its own server URL. You can customize the server URLs to make managing sets of different skills in each environment easier.
Skill invocation API
Now, watsonx Orchestrate supports Skill invocation API. For details, see Get a list of skill sets.
Customer-reported issues fixed in this release
For a list of customer-reported issues that were fixed in this release, see the Fix List for IBM Cloud Pak for Data on the IBM Support website.