IBM (IBM, Financials) announced a major expansion of its artificial intelligence capabilities Tuesday with the launch of watsonx Orchestrate, a platform aimed at helping businesses deploy autonomous agents across complex technology stacks. The announcement marks a shift from conversational AI toward agentic systems that perform tasks independently.

IBM said the new solution supports agents for domains like human resources, procurement and sales, automating tasks such as time-off management, vendor workflows, and lead qualification. The platform integrates with more than 80 enterprise applications, including Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle and Salesforce.

The company is also releasing a no-code automation studio that allows users to build agents in under five minutes, along with a pro-code Agent Development Kit for developers using frameworks like CrewAI and LangGraph. An Agent Catalog with more than 150 tools is expected to support partner-built agents and integrations with collaboration tools such as Slack.

IBM highlighted that watsonx Orchestrate includes agent orchestration and observability features to ensure effective coordination and responsible AI deployment. The system is built to support Model Context Protocol for broader interoperability, allowing companies to integrate agents with thousands of existing tools and APIs.

The company said it expects watsonx Orchestrate to serve as the foundation for next-generation enterprise automation, helping businesses scale agent-based solutions without vendor lock-in.