IBM and Microsoft launch Imagine Enterprise AI agent platform

IBM and Microsoft announced Imagine Enterprise, an agentic platform meant to help companies build, run and govern AI agents that carry out sector-specific business processes. IBM Consulting and Microsoft combined their technology and expertise, backing it with engineers deployed directly on qualifying projects to help clients move faster through AI rollouts, particularly in regulated industries where human expertise still needs to sit alongside AI agents wired into a company’s own data and daily workflows.

The platform rests on three pillars: a starting library of more than 6,000 pre-built AI agents and assets drawn from IBM Consulting Advantage, IBM’s AI-driven delivery platform, so companies aren’t starting from zero; the ability to connect into a company’s existing data, systems and processes rather than replace them, with enterprise security, identity and AI governance built in from the start; and a combination of IBM Consulting’s experience running those 6,000-plus agents with Microsoft’s technology to surface institutional knowledge across an organization for people and agents alike. Underlying tools include Microsoft Foundry, GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Studio for coordinating agents, Microsoft Fabric, Entra, Purview, Defender and Azure for data, identity and security, and IBM Consulting Advantage’s Process Studio, Context Studio and Advantage Core for designing and governing the agents themselves.

“Customers no longer just want AI that helps people do the same work a little faster. They want to build an agentic business,” said Mohamad Ali, senior vice president and head of IBM Consulting. Financial-services firm SEI is an early adopter, working with IBM Consulting and Microsoft to explore agentic technology for its own operations; the firm’s chief AI strategist, Sneha Shah, said SEI is applying the technology deliberately, aiming to strengthen trust and improve decision-making rather than adopt it wholesale.

Imagine Enterprise launches with sector-specific frameworks for financial services, insurance and retail, with IBM and Microsoft saying the design is meant to be repeatable for other industries — manufacturing, energy, the public sector, mobility — over time. Customers can have IBM Consulting deploy and run the platform for them, co-build it with IBM Consulting at enterprise scale, or manage it themselves.

Why it matters

IBM and Microsoft are betting that enterprises adopting agentic AI will pay for a bundled starting point — pre-built agents plus the governance layer regulated industries require — rather than assembling the pieces themselves, a pitch aimed squarely at closing the gap between flashy agent demos and systems companies actually trust with sensitive, regulated workflows.