IBM Bob advances agentic software development with Premium Packages and a new enterprise AI foundation

Today, we’re announcing major updates to IBM Bob, architected for agentic software development across the enterprise software development lifecycle. This release introduces Premium Packages, new architectural capabilities, enterprise administration enhancements and expanded regional deployment options designed to help organizations modernize, govern and optimize AI-powered software engineering at scale.

Agentic software development is rapidly reshaping how enterprises build, modernize, and maintain software. Organizations are moving beyond AI-assisted coding toward agentic software development, where AI helps plan, execute, validate, secure and operate software across the entire software development lifecycle, not just in the IDE. As AI becomes embedded throughout enterprise engineering, the challenge is no longer simply generating code, it is understanding, modernizing, governing and evolving complex enterprise systems with speed, confidence and control.

That challenge is especially clear in modernization. Long-lived systems often contain deeply embedded business logic, undocumented dependencies, brittle validation paths and institutional knowledge accumulated over years of production use. Successful modernization depends on more than converting code. It requires understanding complex systems, preserving business intent, validating changes, governing risk and coordinating work across the software development lifecycle. IBM is uniquely positioned to solve this challenge. Decades of experience modernizing Java, IBM i and IBM Z environments are now embedded into Bob through purpose-built workflows, reusable skills and platform-specific expertise that help enterprises modernize with greater consistency, governance, and confidence.

We are excited to introduce the launch of new IBM Bob Premium Packages, a new way to extend Bob with platform-specific capabilities, workflows and expertise.

Enterprise development isn’t one-size-fits-all. Modernizing a Java application requires different knowledge, tools and workflows than working with IBM i systems or mission-critical mainframe applications. Each environment carries its own architecture, runtime assumptions, integration patterns, validation needs and operational constraints. Premium Packages bring domain intelligence and decades of enterprise expertise directly into Bob while maintaining a consistent developer experience.

This matters because enterprise teams need AI that supports the full lifecycle of platform-specific engineering work, not only one-time migration projects. With IBM Bob Premium Packages, teams can apply platform-aware AI to everyday development, troubleshooting, documentation, testing, modernization and governance across critical Java, IBM i and IBM Z environments. 

Premium Packages extend IBM Bob with:

• Prebuilt workflows and modes designed for common development and modernization tasks
• Domain expertise tailored to specific enterprise platforms and technologies
• Integrations with relevant IBM tools, runtimes, repositories, and systems
• Domain-specific security, validation, and governance capabilities
• Platform-specific optimizations that improve efficiency, reduce rework, and optimize AI-assisted development at scale

Initial offerings include the IBM Bob Premium Package for Java Modernization, IBM Bob Premium Package for i and IBM Bob Premium Package for Z. These packages build on Bob’s core capabilities as an AI-powered development partner that plans, executes, validates and governs multi-step software development and modernization tasks across the SDLC.

Each package gives teams specialized capabilities for the platforms that run the business.

The Premium Package for Java Modernization helps teams modernize and maintain enterprise Java applications through guided, repeatable workflows for version upgrades, runtime modernization, UI transformation, testing and security remediation across complex application estates. 

Key capabilities include: 

• JDK version upgrades: Upgrade Java applications from Java 8 or Java 11 toward modern versions, including Java 17, Java 21 and Java 25, with analysis, compatibility checks, coordinated code changes and validation.
• Liberty modernization: Support modernization to IBM WebSphere Liberty through integration with IBM Application Modernization Accelerator, helping turn migration plans into governed modernization workflows. 
• UI modernization: Transform legacy UI frameworks such as JSP, JSF and Struts into modern application experiences using frameworks such as React or Angular, paired where appropriate with the Carbon design system.
• Unit test generation: Generate and improve test coverage so teams can validate changes earlier and reduce regression risk.
• Security remediation: Identify and remediate vulnerabilities during modernization workflows, including dependency and CVE-related risks. 

The Premium Package for i helps RPG and IBM i teams develop, understand, document, troubleshoot and modernize applications directly in the context of their existing IBM i environments. Its standout architectural capability is the Native Connection, which allows Bob to read source members directly from QSYS and interact with IBM i through native workflows. This reduces the friction of the traditional export-edit-import loop and helps developers work closer to the system they maintain.

Key capabilities include:

• Native IBM i connection: Read, write, compile, run SQL and test code through IBM i workflows. 
• RPG Modernization: Convert fixed-form RPG to free-form RPG while helping teams preserve existing business logic
• Database modernization: Support DDS to DDL conversion 
• SQL support: Analyze, optimize and troubleshoot SQL and legacy DDS-related database patterns
• Business-rule extraction: Generate documentation and extract business logic to reduce reliance on scarce institutional expertise. 
• RAG-backed IBM i knowledge base: Improve platform-aware answers and guidance for IBM i development and modernization work.

The Premium Package for Z helps mainframe teams understand, develop, document, refactor and modernize large-scale IBM Z applications with greater system awareness and governance. A key foundation is Z Understand, the underlaying static-analysis platform that processes large mainframe estates across COBOL, PL/I, assembler, JCL and related artifacts into a query-able repository. This allows Bob to write deterministic queries against application metadata instead of relying on probabilistic code generation. 

Key capabilities include:

• Enterprise-scale application understanding: Analyze applications across thousands of programs and dependencies 
• Z Architect Mode: Support impact analysis, dependency assessment, business-context discovery and modernization planning. 
• Z Code Mode: Explain, generate, modify, refactor and transform mainframe application code. 
• Business-aware documentation: Support business-rule extraction and documentation using metadata and data dictionaries
• Mainframe-aware analysis: Reason across COBOL, PL/I, assembler, JCL, CICS, IMS, Db2 and related Z technologies.
• Governed workflows: Help teams preserve business intent while reducing development and modernization risk. 

Early client engagements demonstrate the value of this approach: How platform-specific expertise and structured workflows can significantly accelerate modernization while reducing deployment risk and preserving application quality.

Alongside Premium Packages, this release introduces a unified architecture built around a shared agent and harness, providing a common execution foundation for how it plans, executes and coordinates development work across every experience. 

Architected for agentic software development, Bob is designed to bring AI capabilities wherever software engineering work happens, from planning and development through testing, CI/CD and operations, rather than confining AI to a single development interface. 

The shared workflow engine enables reusable, governed, multi-step engineering workflows that combine AI agents, enterprise tools, and human approvals into repeatable software delivery processes designed to scale across teams.

New architectural capabilities, including native tool calling, parallel execution, subagents and background task orchestration allow Bob to coordinate increasingly complex engineering work more efficiently across the SDLC. These capabilities enhance responsiveness while enabling more sophisticated agentic workflows to improve day-to-day performance. Parallel tool execution can significantly reduce the time required for complex tasks involving multiple searches, file operations and validation steps. Subagents improve efficiency by performing specialized work in isolated context before returning only the relevant results, while background tasks allow long-running work to continue without interrupting the developer’s workflow. We’ve also folded Bob’s five modes into three (Agent, Plan and Ask) to further streamline work.

Together, these architectural capabilities establish the foundation for IBM Bob to continuously expand with new enterprise workflows, reusable skills, platform expertise and AI-native engineering capabilities as enterprise software development continues to evolve.

As AI adoption expands, development leaders need visibility into usage, governance, optimization and cost.

Bob’s new enterprise administration capabilities provide additional tools to help organizations manage teams, monitor consumption, allocate resources and maintain oversight across deployments. These capabilities are designed to help organizations scale adoption responsibly while giving leaders greater transparency into usage patterns and operational outcomes.

A key addition is Bobalytics, IBM Bob’s enterprise analytics system. Bobalytics helps organizations optimize enterprise AI adoption by providing visibility into productivity, quality, governance, usage and cost, enabling engineering leaders to scale AI responsibly while improving software delivery outcomes.

We’re expanding Bob’s global footprint with new regional deployment options in Japan and Europe. These additions help organizations address regional data residency and sovereignty requirements while giving global teams greater flexibility in how they deploy and adopt Bob. As enterprise AI adoption grows, providing deployment options that align with local regulatory and organizational requirements remains a key priority.

Enterprise software development demands more than faster code generation. Organizations need AI that can understand complex systems, coordinate work across the software development lifecycle, preserve business intent, enforce governance and help engineering teams deliver change with confidence.

This release is built around that reality. Premium Packages bring specialized expertise for Java, IBM i and IBM Z directly into developer workflows. The evolution of Bob’s architecture creates a stronger foundation for future capabilities, while new enterprise administration features and expanded regional availability help organizations adopt AI with greater visibility, governance and flexibility.

Whether you’re modernizing decades-old applications, supporting business-critical platforms or scaling AI development across teams, IBM Bob continues to evolve as an enterprise development partner designed for real-world software delivery.

We’re excited to put these capabilities into your hands. Explore the new Premium Packages, experience the latest platform enhancements and see how the newest release of IBM Bob can help your teams move from AI-assisted coding to governed, enterprise-scale software delivery.

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