IBM brings AI assistant to mainframe, promises Linux version

The IBM mainframe is the latest platform to gain a generative AI-based assistant to simplify automation and help customers with routine tasks. IBM rolled out its new watsonx Assistant for Z v1, which will tie together automation coding and watsonx AI technology to ease mainframe operations.

“Users can seamlessly import existing trusted automation created with Ansible, job control language (JCL), and REXX as skills into the product catalog,” wrote Parul Mishra, vice president, product management with IBM Digital Labor, and Skyla Loomis, vice president, IBM Z Software, in a blog about the new assistant.

“These skills can be invoked via a contextually aware chat experience, using watsonx Orchestrate’s extensible automation framework that improves productivity and accelerates efficiency on the mainframe,” they wrote. WatsonX lets customers build and manage AI resources and workflows.

watsonx Assistant for Z uses a chat-focused granite 13b.labrador generative AI Large Language Foundation model. This model is an enterprise-level, English-language system that is trained with a dataset of more than 2.5 trillion tokens, including IBM Z-specific content. It uses Z domain-specific retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to provide curated content to users, according to Mishra and Loomis. For example, the assistant can generate answers to IBM Z users’ questions in Z-specific content as well as recommend relevant automated skills that can be acted upon during the conversation.

An AI assistant builder offers access to a low-code generative AI and automation studio to stand-up large language model (LLM) powered assistants that are grounded in business context, data, and automation, the bloggers stated.

“The AI assistant builder enables you to extend your investments in automation and scale adoption through a highly conversational interface that is infused with AI that you can trust. Generative AI capabilities are delivered natively by IBM’s trusted and transparent LLMs fine-tuned for specific business functions,” the bloggers stated. “Builders have the flexibility and control to decide when and how LLMs are used via content grounding, AI-guided actions, and conversational skills.”

Going forward, IBM said it intends to develop an IBM watsonx Assistant for Z that runs on IBM Linux on Z. The ideas are the same for the Linux distribution in that customers can simplify operations and development on IBM Linux on Z.

IBM Z is just the latest in myriad AI-based assistants to be offered from a variety of vendors including Cisco, Juniper, Extreme, Microsoft, Fortinet and many more.

A recent Gartner report stated that by 2028, 75% of enterprise software engineers will use AI code assistants, up from less than 10% in early 2023. Sixty-three percent of organizations are currently piloting, deploying or have already deployed AI code assistants.