News Analysis
IBM hopes to push the boundaries of enterprise automation with the latest version watsonx Orchestrate that introduces a suite of agentic AI capabilities intended to help businesses work more effectively. What sets this release apart is integration with more than 80 enterprise platforms. This interoperability helps AI agents act across systems in a unified way.
One feature is multi-agent orchestration, which enables custom, pre-built and third-party agents to collaborate in real time within one interface. IBM also launched the Agent Catalog, a curated marketplace offering hundreds of plug-and-play agents and tools from IBM and its partners — lowering the barrier to automation for users regardless of technical skill level.
Deploying Scalable Agentic AI Solutions
As enterprise interest in AI adoption accelerates, IBM is positioning watsonx Orchestrate as a centralized platform for deploying scalable, agent-driven solutions that boost productivity, streamline operations and future-proof the digital workplace.IBM is redefining how organizations automate and manage complex workflows by integrating with more than 80 enterprise applications, from ERP and CRM systems to HR and IT platforms, including Adobe, AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow and Workday, said Parul Mishra, global vice president for AI agents, intelligent automation and analytics at IBM.
This broad integration lets AI agents run within existing environments, eliminating silos and manual handoffs. More important, its multi-agent orchestration lets agents collaborate, share context and coordinate actions across systems, improving continuity and intelligence throughout the workflow. The result means software runs better, faster and more accurately, without the need to replace existing infrastructure.
One challenge in deploying multiple AI agents is ensuring coordinated execution, visibility, and governance across a fragmented ecosystem. Without a unified approach, organizations risk agent sprawl, where disconnected agents create more complexity than value. IBM’s approach with watsonx Orchestrate addresses this by enabling agents to communicate and hand off tasks intelligently, Mishra said.
Using Multiple Agents From Multiple Vendors
Just as one AI model cannot do everything, one agent also cannot do everything, so having multiple agents will be increasingly necessary. “Using watsonx Orchestrate means multiple agents from multiple vendors can share information and manage complex, multi-step processes together, ensuring tasks are done efficiently and accurately across various workflows,” Mishra said.
Agents cannot do it alone, she emphasized. “They need to integrate cleanly with existing business applications, workflows, decision engines and enterprise data to accomplish work.”
“The role of the Agentic AI Orchestration is to bridge across agents and existing systems and data, providing high fidelity and high-quality integration—taking care of semantic mediation across business systems, identity management and access control and governance of agentic workflows,” Mishra said.
Lowering the Barrier to Agentic AI Development
With watsonx Orchestrate, the barriers to agent development are also being lowered, with it now taking only five minutes from build to deployment, according to Mishra.
This democratization of agent development has potential, but not without risks. “It creates powerful opportunities for innovation at the edge of the business, but also introduces potential risks, from inconsistent performance to security and compliance concerns, if not governed appropriately,” Mishra warned.
IBM mitigates these risks through the watsonx platform’s built-in safeguards. “We’ve embedded enterprise-grade guardrails across the platform, including agent observability and lifecycle management to optimize performance, built-in governance and access controls to ensure secure, compliant deployments and access to trusted, curated datasets and AI models that are bias-tested and privacy-aware,” Mishra said.
The value extends to specific business functions as well.
For example, HR leaders can accelerate the deployment of agents for employee support, talent acquisition and onboarding, freeing time for strategic initiatives, Mishra said. Similarly, watsonx Sales agents help automate prospecting and lead outreach, while watsonx Procurement agents improve supplier assessment and vendor management.
On collaboration between humans and AI, Mishra reflects: “From a very human perspective, the idea of interacting with dozens of AI agents sounds overwhelming.” That is where orchestration comes in. “Multi-agent orchestration is increasingly important because it reduces that overwhelm by routing and orchestrating agents in real time in the background to handle complex enterprise projects. Meanwhile, the user is only talking to a single chat interface.”
How Agentic AI Shifts Enterprise Operations
The rise of agent-driven automation represents a shift in enterprise operations. Rapid agent development helps business users build custom workflows that respond in real time to shifting business conditions, said Henson Tsai, founder and CEO of SleekFlow.
This newfound flexibility, however, brings its own set of challenges. Without strong role-based access controls, observability, versioning and lifecycle governance, enterprises risk losing oversight and consistency, putting long-term alignment with business goals at stake.
Domain-specific agents already show fast, measurable ROI. In sales, pre-configured agents streamline lead qualification, follow-ups and quote generation, freeing teams to focus on strategic selling. Departments such as procurement and HR benefit from accelerated onboarding, automated requisition handling and built-in compliance. These benefits are available even to business leaders without technical expertise. “When powered by AI, every touchpoint can be optimized to improve the overall customer experience,” Tsai explained.
The next step comes from multi-agent orchestration, where AI agents and humans collaborate. By dynamically exchanging tasks based on context and capabilities, this hybrid system is both more efficient and more trustworthy. “We’ve seen that syncing automation with human decision-making builds confidence and scales impact,” said Tsai. IBM’s orchestration framework helps enterprises bring this model to scale, so agent networks work together across large, complex environments.
But agent-based automation is not just a technical evolution — it is a cultural one. Organizations must build AI literacy across the workforce, encourage innovation through experimentation and form cross-functional teams that pair technical experts with business leaders. Effective change management is as essential as model training. “Those who can empower every employee to confidently use AI will be the ones leading the new era,” Tsai said.
The Effect of Broken Coordination
Failure in enterprise AI often does not stem from weak tools but from broken coordination, said Kevin Dean, CEO and founder of Manobyte,. “You have good people, strong platforms and ambitious goals. But if your agents are not aligned across systems, departments and data flows, it is like sending a school of sharks in opposite directions,” he said.
This is the orchestration challenge that IBM is now addressing head-on. The Better Business Bureau, for example, used IBM’s watsonx Orchestrate on consumer protection and operational efficiency, saving $1.5 million a year. Dun & Bradstreet, meanwhile, cut procurement task time by up to 20% through AI-powered supplier risk evaluation. These results show how strategic orchestration of agents not only simplifies operations but delivers substantial financial and operational gains.
As organizations increasingly adopt platforms like watsonx Orchestrate, AI agents are set to evolve from task-specific tools into intelligent collaborators that can do complex, multi-step workflows without much human involvement.
These agents will operate with greater autonomy, dynamically coordinate with other agents and integrate more deeply into business systems, all while remaining governed and observable, Mishra said. This evolution will redefine their role, shifting AI agents from productivity enhancers to core drivers of operational efficiency, innovation and enterprise agility. In doing so, they will find new sources of value and help businesses respond more swiftly and effectively to change.
Conference
Oct
20
Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo Orlando 2025
Register
Conference
Oct
27
Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo Orlando 2025
Register
To fully capture this value, organizations must complement technological advancement with investment in skill development and cultural transformation, Parul emphasized. “Building AI literacy across the workforce, upskilling employees in automation and data-driven decision-making and fostering a mindset of continuous learning and experimentation are essential,” she said.
Just as important are the organizational changes required: promoting cross-functional collaboration, modernizing workflow design and establishing governance frameworks that ensure responsible and ethical AI deployment. By aligning people, processes and technology, companies create the foundation necessary to scale AI agents effectively and take the best advantage of them.
Editor's Note: Read how other vendors approach AI Agents:
- Zoho Enters AI Agent Fray With Zia Agents — Zoho's new AI agent platform, Zia Agents, is built for its own productivity suite. The agentic AI integrates seamlessly across the over 50 Zoho workplace apps.
- Glean Adds New Functionality, Scale and Reach to Agent Platform at Glean:GO — Glean launched over 40 new features and functionality, most of which revolved around its Agent offering, at its Glean:GO event in San Francisco on May 20.
- ServiceNow and Salesforce Fight to Be the Center of AI Agent Operations — Salesforce and ServiceNow move into each other’s domains, but their eyes are on a much bigger prize.