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Key takeaways
- AI efforts risk compounding technical debt.
- IBM is extending its internal AI platform to outside customers.
- The offering is the latest in the emerging "Services-as-Software" category.
IBM has launched a combined platform and consulting service intended to introduce greater cohesion between various artificial intelligence initiatives that have been surging within enterprises.
Until now, many AI initiatives have been either fragmented proofs of concept, function-specific applications, or embedded within commercial product features. IBM's offering, called IBM Enterprise Advantage, represents a next-generation AI platform and service delivered as a comprehensive package that can be plugged into a wide variety of business cases -- without the fuss and muss of tearing up existing systems or searching around for specific talent and toolsets.
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The goal, according to IBM, is to help AI managers rapidly build AI-ready processes on top of their existing cloud providers, AI models, or core infrastructures. The combined platform and service offering will also assist in redesigning workflows, connecting AI to existing systems, and scaling new agentic applications within their domains.
Why AI projects stall before reaching scale
Many efforts to date have typically been built off public or private AI models, "often uncovering enterprise debts that stall progress," Saurabh Gupta, president of research and advisory services at HFS Research, told . "Those often-experimental approaches rarely translate into enterprise-grade outcomes on their own."
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Technical debt, which has been accumulating for years within many enterprises, is accelerating as AI is used as a shortcut to address business system requirements. Other forms of debt are also arising with rising AI usage, including skills debt, which means not enough practitioners who can build and operationalize AI, Gupta said. The rush into AI also incurs data debt, consisting of fragmented or poorly governed data. In addition, AI also creates process debt, marked by manual or inconsistent workflows.
Enterprise Advantage is built on IBM's own internal AI systems and experience, and now extended out to customers, Francesco Brenna, vice president and senior partner, global leader of AI integration for IBM Consulting, told .
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"It brings together IBM Consulting Advantage, our own internal AI-powered delivery platform, with a growing catalog of pre-built agentic applications for industry- and domain-specific workflows," said Brenna. The company reports 150 client installations so far.
Services-as-Software as the next AI model
This type of offering represents a new category of AI applications called Services-as-Software. This market, projected to grow to $1.5 trillion over the coming decade, encompasses delivery that is "automated, composable, and governed like software rather than bespoke consulting alone," Gupta said.
Services as software represents the "industrialization of AI adoption," Gupta added.
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IBM embeds its service into business processes and can be deployed on top of AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, IBM watsonx, as well as both open -- and closed -- source models. The offering also provides access to pre-built agentic applications. Training is also included. The offering, while designed for organizations of all sizes, "is especially valuable for mid-market and large enterprises that have complex systems, regulatory requirements, or AI initiatives that have stalled," Brenna said.
Notable use cases for Enterprise Advantage include "customer service automation, compliance and regulatory workflows, document-centric processes, supply chain optimization, and industry use cases such as claims management," Brenna said.
The combined platform and service has been instrumental in the generative AI strategy among one early adopter, a manufacturing company. The service helped the company's AI managers identify high-value use cases and test targeted prototypes. Importantly, the implementation has helped the company's leaders better align around the company's AI strategy.
The company is now deploying AI assistants using multiple technologies in a secured, governed environment that lays the foundation for upcoming AI initiatives, IBM reported.
Turning pilots into measurable outcomes
IBM seeks to employ the solution to help companies "move beyond isolated use cases into scaled, governed, and orchestrated execution," Brenna said. "It is particularly effective for projects that require redesigning end-to-end workflows, connecting fragmented data and context, enforcing enterprise controls, and turning early pilots into measurable business outcomes."
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Such a structured service approach turns "raw AI capabilities into business-ready solutions," said Gupta. "So you're still leveraging powerful models but in a way that manages enterprise debts and accelerates meaningful deployment rather than leaving companies to solve structural challenges on their own."
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