Inc. Magazine
IBM says the AI trial phase is over and is launching ready-to-use AI agents to simplify tasks in HR, sales, procurement, and IT. These tools cut down the need for tech experts, letting regular employees use AI through simple interfaces. It could boost productivity but also shrink IT roles.
IBM Just Declared ‘The Era of AI Experimentation Is Over.’ Here’s Why
Author: Kit Eaton
No other company has a history with computers and technology quite like IBM. From its founding in 1911, the technology giant was a leader in developing the mainframe computer and the desktop PC, and is still at the forefront of next-gen quantum computing. At one point it made 70 percent of computers sold worldwide. So when this historic company’s CEO Arvind Krishna makes a statement like “The era of AI experimentation is over,” and it releases a suite of tools designed to help companies best use agent AI systems, it’s worth paying attention.
In a press release about its own push into AI agents (AI systems that can autonomously perform digital actions), IBM explains that “for decades, interacting with powerful enterprise systems required specialized knowledge to navigate a vast network of complex interfaces,” but that has changed, and “agents will lower the barrier to accessing AI’s power. By enabling interaction through conversational interfaces, users can simply state their goals” and a network of AI agents will do all the work behind the scenes.
The company says it’s releasing AI targeting human resources professionals, which can “help automate workflows for employee support, such as time off management, profile updates, leave and benefits.” It’s also launching “Procurement agents,” designed to simplify typical behind-the-scenes business tasks like sorting out “pay, supplier assessment, and vendor management processes.” Lastly it’s releasing sales agents, which it says can “automate sales processes, help identify new prospects, support outreach to qualified leads, and optimize research.”
This last tool is interesting, because it follows close on the heels of sales giant Salesforce’s own push into AI agents. In September the software company released what it called Agentforce, with an AI tool that is powerful enough to act like a sales rep. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff explained at the time he thought some of the AI tools companies were already using, based on question-and-response chatbot tech, weren’t “ready for prime time, and weren’t necessarily delivering a good return on investment. That’s a notion supported by recent reports saying AI isn’t yet saving workers much time or money. But agents are “AI as it was meant to be,” since they are capable of actually helping companies function, Benioff said.
IBM clearly agrees, and it too is launching an AI agent-building tool so that companies can tailor AI agents to serve their specific business needs. This tool is even more directly aimed at simplifying using AI agents, since it apparently is a “no-code automation studio that allows them to build their own agent in 5 minutes, tapping into pre-built agents and tools from our Agent Catalog.” This means even teams in smaller companies that lack computing expertise may be able to quickly pull together an AI agent that, say, fills in some digital forms that are needed regularly, or which can carry out specific calculations the company relies on.
IBM’s push into agents is arguably smart. But it also reignites the “will AI steal my job” debate. Complex, expensive computer and software systems are why big companies have needed IT departments which employ highly skilled employees who provide services to other departments.
If you think about IBM’s press release text, it suggests that IT departments may be smaller in the future, because AI agents, used by more employees, spread some of this capability out in a more accessible way—because agents are easy to use, you don’t need to be an expert. IBM calls this the “democratizing” power of agents, and says it thinks people will use them “across functions like HR, finance, IT and customer service.”
Credits: TCA, LLC.