Let’s create smarter business

Today, no one can afford to ignore the massive opportunity that the AI revolution represents. However, business leaders often feel as though AI is something that is happening to them, and that the rapid changes taking place are not entirely under their control.

The pressure to transform — from the board, from leadership, from the market — never lets up. What is hype and what is real? It’s unclear. FOMO is a thing…but with so much at stake, what if you make the wrong decision?

• You implemented an AI sales agent, but it doesn’t integrate with your other agents and operates in a silo.
• You run a query and get generic answers because your AI is flying blind, unconnected to your business data. 
• You were promised simplicity, but now you’re managing more tools, more data, more risk.

The truth is: tech is never the point. All that matters is what it makes possible.

So, what if there were a path through the confusion and complexity? There is — and it leads beyond surface-level fixes to serious competitive advantage. IBM calls it creating a smarter business.

A smarter business is what you get when you precisely, deeply and effectively integrate intelligence throughout your critical business systems to become:

• More efficient: optimizing cost, doing more with less and increasing productivity.
• More agile: adapting quickly to change and driving sustainable growth.
• More innovative:  evolving quickly to outthink and outperform the competition.

This isn’t just theory. IBM is helping thousands of organizations become smarter businesses now, across industries and across the globe. From service and support to the many systems at the heart of how business works, we are embedding intelligence everywhere.

Here are just a few examples of what is possible:

• In sales and customer service, AI and automation are resolving issues up to 70% faster, freeing teams from repetitive tasks, reducing stress and giving them more time to focus on meaningful, strategic work.
• In procurement, supply chain, finance and HR, AI is helping employees achieve up to 75% productivity improvement. That added efficiency translates into faster operations, lower costs, and more capacity to drive strategic initiatives that grow the business.
• In DevOps, IT and engineering, AI is accelerating software development, with up to 60% of content generated automatically. This shift liberates teams to spend more time applying critical thinking and advanced skills to the most promising opportunities, delivering higher-quality solutions that move the business forward.

We’re transforming IBM, too. For the past few years, our mandate has been to rethink the business completely, eliminating operational complexity, simplifying processes and embedding intelligence everywhere.

These changes have reshaped entire business functions, from HR and IT support to sales and procurement. As a result, we’re on track to deliver USD 4.5 billion in productivity gains by the end of 2025.

Everybody wants more efficiency, agility and innovation. What sets a smarter business apart is how it goes about achieving these outcomes. To realize AI’s full potential, you need a systemic approach that transforms core systems, workflows and processes across four key dimensions:

An agent is a system that autonomously performs tasks by designing workflows with available tools. ​ Where once software could only execute on predefined algorithms, now, every user can define their goals, while AI explores and proposes ways to achieve them.  But they can only deliver on that promise when integrated with your existing applications, data, and models to automate complex tasks and accelerate time to value.

Smarter business in action: Cutting-edge agricultural R & D firm Avid Solutions implemented IBM’s watsonx Orchestrate solution to seamlessly implement AI agents across all their leading tools and applications. This unified, efficient experience not only improved the accuracy of their management processes but drove a 25% reduction in the time it takes to onboard new customers. The result? More engaged employees, more satisfied customers.

AI becomes a true strategic asset when it’s fueled by your enterprise data. A smarter business brings together structured and unstructured data across their operations, no matter where it resides. Only then can AI deliver insights and actions that are relevant to the business, driving genuine competitive differentiation.

Smarter business in action: Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin teamed up with IBM to create an integrated view of its enterprise data, making it easier to scale AI and apply it effectively across the organization.  By consolidating 46 disparate data systems and tools onto a single integrated platform, the company’s internal operations and data management processes are now streamlined to enable rapid, cost-effective innovation.

As organizations move from piloting AI to full-scale production, they need the right architecture to support their ambitions. A smarter business designs hybrid cloud environments that allow AI to operate wherever data resides, optimizing infrastructure for performance and flexibility.

Smarter business in action: Each year, nearly one million people make the journey to Flushing, New York, to watch the best tennis players in the world compete in the US Open Tennis Championships.  But 15 times that number follow the tournament through the US Open app and website. IBM Consulting helped the US Open build a hybrid cloud architecture that grants AI access to the right data at the right time, delivering real time analysis to keep fans engaged and delighted.

A smarter business streamlines technology management and operations with AI to gain visibility, efficiency, security and resiliency. Instead of layering on new tools and adding costs, they’re focused on gaining more value from the systems they already have, making everything work better, together.

Smarter business in Action: Global IT services leader Samsung SDS America needed greater visibility into cloud spend and an efficient way to identify waste, improving operational efficiency without expanding overhead.  By implementing automation from IBM, they were able to align cloud spend to business value, resulting in an 11% reduction in spending across 86 cloud accounts.

Any business can use AI — that’s the easy part. IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business.

Combining cutting-edge innovation with decades-deep industry and domain expertise, we understand how the enterprise works inside out — from supply chains to payment systems to customer service and beyond.

It’s time to move beyond AI experimentation and to start delivering serious value. We’re already helping thousands of companies close the gap between vision and execution. We can do the same for you.

Let’s create smarter business.