Overview of IBM watsonx Orchestrate

IBM watsonx Orchestrate is a product that empowers your business by automating tasks, simplifying complex processes, and ultimately saving you and your team time and effort. Get access to a broad range of prebuilt apps and skills to help you and your team complete daily tasks like emailing coworkers, collating spreadsheets, creating cases at Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms, and so much more.

Learn the concepts behind the features that you might face when you use watsonx Orchestrate:

  • Use of skills in the legacy chat and the AI chat through AI assistants
  • Relation between skill catalog and skill sets
  • Relation between apps and skills
  • Customization of skills for your digital worker
  • Creation of conversational experiences with AI assistants
  • Automation of repetitive work with projects

The following diagram illustrates the process to add skills from the skill catalog to the personal or team skill sets and use these skills directly in the legacy chat.

Skills basic process
Figure 1. The process to add skills from the skill catalog to the personal or team skill set and use these skills by typing in the legacy chat.

IBM watsonx Orchestrate has prebuilt connectors to apps with skills ready to use, so if you're getting started with the product, you might need to add some skills from the skill catalog to a skill set or AI assistant so you can use them.

All skills are grouped in apps, which are available on the skill catalog. Go to the skill catalog to connect to apps and add their skills to a skill set or an AI assistant. Use the chat to directly start a skill or call an AI assistant and use the skills through it.

The chat

Use the chat to accomplish your tasks with help of a generative artificial intelligence (AI), AI assistants and skills.

The AI chat

In the AI chat of watsonx Orchestrate, you can interact with powerful generative AI models of your choice. Use the chat to complete generative artificial intelligence (AI) tasks, or even run skills to complete more complex tasks like sending emails or posting a job requisition with purpose-built AI assistants, which are designed for a domain or use case based on your business needs.

The AI chat landing page.
Figure 2. AI chat landing page on watsonx Orchestrate.

Using AI assistants in the AI chat requires that you add them to the chat beforehand. For more information, see Using the AI chat.

The legacy chat

In the legacy chat of watsonx Orchestrate, ask questions that are related to the work you want done or use the skills in your personal or team skill set. The following video shows an interaction with the chat:

Note: This video has no narration.

For more information, see Using the legacy chat.

Skills and apps

Apps group collections of skills that you can use to complete certain tasks so you can take more time to focus on what you do best.

Skills can be as simple as a singular action or as elaborate as needed to complete some tasks. For example, adding a row to an Excel table is a single action that accomplishes a task. While getting the email of job candidates and sending to them the contents of a file over email is a bit more complex task. On watsonx Orchestrate, those complex tasks can be built as skill flows.

Use your skills in the way that fits better to the flow of your tasks, for example:

  • You can add skills to a skill set and start them directly in the watsonx Orchestrate chat.
  • You can add skill-based actions to AI assistants to and start them in the AI assistant chat or the AI chat.

Skill-based actions are the skills that you add to AI assistants to implement orchestration for specific conversations. Any skill, even if it's a prebuilt or a custom skill, can be used as a skill-based action if its app is connected for a AI assistant environment.

Check the prebuilt apps available and their skills in the Prebuilt apps and skills topic.

Skill catalog

The skill catalog is a shareable repository of skills that you can use in a skill set or an AI assistant. The skill catalog contains all skills that are published on watsonx Orchestrate. To open the skill catalog, click Add skills from the catalog or go to the menu Menu icon and click Skill catalog.

The following video shows how to open the skill catalog:


Note: This video has no narration.

To use a skill, even if you want to add it to a skill set or run it in a conversational way with AI assistants, you must connect to the app that the skill belongs to.

The following video shows how to connect to an app through the skill catalog:

Note: This video has no narration.

Also, check the following procedures to connect to apps according to the approach that you choose to use skills:

Skill set

Skill sets are a bundle of skills that you use on watsonx Orchestrate to automate tasks based on a business context. To use a skill, you must add the skill to your skill set.

The following image shows the skills that were added to a skill set:

The skills in a skill set
Figure 3. The skills in a skill set on the chat page.

On watsonx Orchestrate, you have the personal skills, the team skills and the AI Agent. Also, you have the AI assistants that you manage as you do for the team skill set.

Personal skills

Personal skills are the set of skills that only you use. To use that skills, select Personal skills on watsonx Orchestrate menu bar. You add skills to your personal skills set through the skill catalog. Connect to apps to use their skills.

The following image shows the personal skill set:

Personal skills
Figure 4. Personal skills set on the chat page.

Team skills

Team skills are the set of skills that all your team can use. To use these skills, select Team skills on watsonx Orchestrate menu bar. Only builders and admins can add skills and connect to the apps in the team skill set. Use shared credentials to connect to the apps of the team skill set because these credentials are used for everyone in your team to run the skills.

The following image shows the team skill set:

Team skills
Figure 5. Team skills set on the chat page.

Orchestrate Agent skill set

Orchestrate Agent skill set are the set of skills that all your team can use in the AI chat. To use these skills, the admin of the tenant must connect the apps that hold the skills to the Orchestrate Agent skill set, and add these skills to the AI chat. Use shared credentials to connect to the apps of the Orchestrate Agent skill set because these credentials are used for everyone in your team to run the skills.

Note: For the user role, the skill catalog in the team skills set shows the apps and skills that are already added to the skill set.

AI assistants environments

An environment is a place where you can group AI assistant content, channels, and extensions in separate containers.

The draft environment and the live environment come with each AI assistant that you create in a tenant. An AI assistant environment behaves as the team skill set, in which all resources like apps and their skills, and connections are shared with all members that have access to that AI assistant in a tenant.

Switch from AI assistants' environments in the same way you do for the personal and team skill sets.

Customize skills for your digital worker

Build customized skills for your digital worker with the building capabilities on watsonx Orchestrate. With these capabilities, you can:

  • Create custom skills by combining internal systems, third-party tools, and prebuilt skills.
  • Discover new skills from applications.
  • Combine multiple skills into a flow to automate several steps of your daily tasks.

Custom skills

Custom skills are imported skills that you, as a builder, build and import into watsonx Orchestrate, or discover from applications. With custom skills, you can combine internal systems, third-party tools, and prebuilt skills to accomplish use cases for your organization's specific needs.

Within the platform, you can explore the following capabilities to build custom skills:

  • Build an OpenAPI file with aid of the OpenAPI Builder and upload this file into the platform.
  • Discover skills from applications, such as:
    • IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation - On premises,
    • IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation as a service,
    • IBM Robotic Process Automation,
    • IBM Business Automation Workflow as a service,
    • IBM Operational Decision Manager as a service

Learn more about these capabilities in Building skills by importing OpenAPI files, Building skills from apps, and Building OpenAPI specifications in OpenAPI Builder.

The following image illustrates the process that a builder takes to import custom skills:

Process to import custom skills
Figure 6. Diagram of the process to import custom skills.

Notice that importing custom skills doesn't mean that these skills are available in the skill catalog right away. Before they can be available, you must follow the path that is illustrated in the previous image:

  • Choose the source from where you want to import your custom skills, which can be imported from an OpenAPI file or discovered from resources of an in-product app.
  • Select the custom skills that you want to bring to watsonx Orchestrate.
  • Enhance the custom skill. You enhance one skill at a time.
  • Publish the custom skill. You publish one skill at a time.

After you publish the custom skill, it becomes available in the skill catalog for you to add it to a skill set. Later on, you can use the skill added.

Skill flow

Create a skill flow that combines two or more skills to automate several steps of your repetitive tasks. A skill flow is a linear sequence of skills that you have on your skill catalog that can come from different applications.

For more information, see Combining skills into skill flows.

Create conversational experiences with AI assistants

AI assistants can guide users through complex digital journeys by handling simple or complex conversations while run backend tasks, like creating files in a storage service or emailing a coworker.

Create conversational experiences with the AI assistant builder, a low-code builder capability within watsonx Orchestrate, where you can combine generative AI and conversational AI features to tackle complex integrations and workflows. With the AI assistant builder, you create skill-based actions from your skills and configure built-in integrations to meet users where they are.

The screen of the steps for a single action in an assistant.
Figure 7. The image displays the steps of the Authenticate a user sample action in an assistant.

For more information, see Building AI assistants.

Automate repetitive work with projects


A project represents a set of business logics through decisions and workflow models that automate or solve a business problem. Decision models help you capture business decisions in a decision diagram. This diagram provides an abstract, high-level representation of how decisions and the data that is required to decide are structured and related to each other.
While workflow models help you to model business processes over a sequence of activities such as workflows, decisions, or skills.

Create projects with the Skill studio to automate repetitive work from your team. With the Skill studio, you can build projects from scratch, import existing projects, or use industry samples to get started. Later on, you can publish projects to use as skills in watsonx Orchestrate.

The screen of the new project creation through industry samples.
Figure 8. The image displays the page to create a new project through industry samples. You can create the new project by scratch or import existing projects, use discovery tutorials, or use industry samples.

The screen of a decision model for the Retention offer sample.
Figure 9. The image displays the decision model for the Retention offer sample.

For more information, see Building projects.

Are you ready to get started?

Explore the pathways based on the chat that you use on IBM watsonx Orchestrate:

➤ Getting started with the AI chat

Have a conversational experience with the AI chat to assist you in your daily work.

➤ Getting started with the legacy chat

Use skills in the legacy chat to automate your tasks.

You can also check the Feature parity between deployments or Getting your first access to IBM watsonx Orchestrate.

Parent topic:

→ Getting started with IBM watsonx Orchestrate