IBM Bob powers faster innovation, higher productivity and modern app development in your organization.
Build faster with an AI partner
Agentic development environments are redefining how enterprises build and modernize software — coordinating planning, execution, and verification across the SDLC so teams can ship faster, upgrade legacy systems continuously, and maintain the security and governance organizations require.
Achieve 20–80% productivity gains across SDLC tasks, with 90%+ time savings on repetitive work.
Deliver complex engineering work 20–40% faster and cut effort 50–80% for structured workflows.
Reduce AI compute spend by ~40% and lower cost per feature through earlier issue detection and less rework.
Catch vulnerabilities earlier, decreasing downstream issues and improving audit readiness.
Features
- Agentic modes
- Code modernization
- Security-first architecture
- Cost optimization
Code, Ask, Plan, Advanced, Orchestrator
Bob’s agentic modes let teams plan, reason, implement, and validate complex changes across code and systems—ensuring high-quality outcomes, not just generated code.
- Ask: Understand concepts or analyze existing code without making changes
- Plan: Think through architecture or creating a technical plan before implementation
- Code: Implement features, fixing bugs or making code improvements
- Advanced: Full tool access for complex dev workflows
- Orchestrator: Coordinate complex tasks across multiple modes
Modernize faster, maintain quality
Modernization becomes a predictable, incremental process rather than a risk‑heavy initiative. These environments manage refactoring, framework transitions, dependency upgrades, and test regeneration in ways that safeguard system integrity and enable measurable progress.
Repo-wide refactors, dependency upgrades, and framework migrations
Automatic test regeneration and CI alignment
Enables modernization programs to progress continuously—with measurable risk reduction at each step
Shift-left without adding friction
Bob embeds security into everyday development with real-time analysis and automated checks that detect vulnerabilities during code authoring, not after the fact.
Early detection in the IDE and PR review
Fewer incidents and less rework down stream
Engineered trust through automated, auditable guardrails embedded at authoring time
Cost control that fuels innovation
By selecting the right AI capability for each task and minimizing redundant compute cycles, this category creates a disciplined cost model for AI‑assisted development. Leaders gain clearer spend attribution and more predictable operating costs.
Predictable outcomes and cost discipline through task-aware execution, using the right model for the job.
Deterministic execution paths reduce waste and rework
Enables predictable AI spend with centralized visibility and policy control (Bobalytics)
Use cases
IBM Bob accelerates software development by automating complex, time‑consuming work—from building new features to modernizing legacy systems and strengthening secure delivery—so teams ship high‑quality software with less effort.
Build complete test automation frameworks and generate comprehensive test coverage rapidly, improving release confidence without slowing delivery.
Understand complex codebases faster with architectural insight enabling teams to deliver new features with confidence.
Create production-ready integration agents and MCP servers in minutes, accelerating automation across enterprise workflows.
Modernize Java, COBOL, RPG, and mainframe systems by reverse-engineering undocumented code and executing validated upgrades in days instead of months.
Artur Skowronski
Head of Java & Kotlin Engineering
“
Bob is the first tool of its kind to treat Java as a first-class citizen. The tool works very well and captures the modernization intent. ”
Hans Boef
Manager Technical Consultants & Support, Novadoc
“
Bob demonstrated a level of intelligence and contextual understanding that goes beyond anything I've seen in other tools. ”
Steve Cast
Practice Director, Fresche Solutions
“
Bob has built-in guardrails. It operates in different modes, allowing you to approve its suggestions before any changes are made to your source code. ”