IBM unveils cutting-edge hybrid AI and data solutions at THINK 2025, enabling enterprises to scale generative AI across fragmented IT environments.
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| At THINK 2025, IBM introduced hybrid AI capabilities, agent orchestration, and unstructured data tools to transform enterprise operations and AI deployment. Image: IBM |
Armonk, USA – May 6, 2025:
At its annual THINK 2025 event, IBM unveiled a suite of hybrid AI technologies aimed at removing the persistent barriers to enterprise AI scalability. The company’s announcements address the integration complexity many businesses face as they adopt AI agents and generative tools across fragmented cloud and on-premise environments.
Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna emphasized that “the era of AI experimentation is over,” as IBM positions itself to drive measurable business outcomes through practical, scalable AI integration.
A recent IBM CEO study revealed that while AI investment is projected to more than double within two years, only 25% of current initiatives have delivered expected returns. To bridge this gap, IBM is expanding its watsonx Orchestrate platform with build-your-own and pre-built AI agents tailored for HR, sales, procurement, and more. These agents now integrate with over 80 enterprise applications—including Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce—streamlining complex workflows through intelligent orchestration and performance monitoring.
The new Agent Catalog provides access to over 150 agents and tools, developed in collaboration with partners like Box, MasterCard, and ServiceNow. Notable entries include a conversational HR assistant for Slack and a prospecting sales agent embedded in Salesforce's Agentforce.
IBM also debuted webMethods Hybrid Integration, designed to unify API, app, event, and B2B partner management across hybrid clouds. A Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) study projected a 176% ROI over three years from this solution, citing reduced downtime and major time savings on both complex and simple projects.
To activate unstructured enterprise data—often trapped in contracts and documents—IBM introduced updates to watsonx.data, merging open data lakehouse architecture with data fabric features like lineage tracking and governance. New tools like watsonx.data integration and watsonx.data intelligence enable AI models to tap into unstructured sources for significantly improved accuracy, with internal tests indicating up to 40% better performance than traditional retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).
Further bolstering its capabilities, IBM announced its intent to acquire DataStax, enhancing its unstructured data reach and vector search potential. Additionally, Meta’s Llama Stack now features watsonx as an API provider, expanding generative AI deployment options.
To support the growing infrastructure demands of AI, IBM launched LinuxONE 5, capable of handling 450 billion AI inference operations daily. Featuring the Telum II on-chip processor and forthcoming Spyre Accelerator, the platform boasts confidential containers and quantum-safe encryption, offering up to 44% TCO savings over five years when compared to x86 systems.
IBM also broadened its hardware partnerships with AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and CoreWeave to deliver high-performance solutions tailored for compute-heavy AI applications.
With these innovations, IBM reaffirms its commitment to powering the next phase of enterprise AI—one driven by hybrid flexibility, data activation, and enterprise-grade scalability.