IBM Launches WatsonX Code Assistant for Enterprise Application

IBM has unveiled WatsonX Code Assistant, a cutting-edge AI-powered tool designed to enhance the speed and accuracy of coding for enterprise developers and IT operators. This innovative product utilizes natural language prompts, enabling users to code more efficiently. WatsonX Code Assistant caters to two specific enterprise scenarios: IT Automation through WatsonX Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed, facilitating tasks like network configuration and code deployment, and mainframe application modernization via WatsonX Code Assistant for Z, streamlining the translation of COBOL to Java on IBM Z.1.

Crafted to expedite development while upholding core values of trust, security, and compliance, this product harnesses the power of generative AI rooted in IBM's Granite foundation models, tailored for code operations on the WatsonX platform. Utilizing the decoder architecture, foundational to extensive language model capabilities, it predicts upcoming sequences to aid natural language processing tasks. IBM is actively investigating ways to enhance WatsonX Code Assistant with specialized generative AI features, enabling support in code generation, code explanation, and the entire software development lifecycle. This ongoing effort fuels the momentum of enterprise application modernization.

According to a recent IDC report, “Because it relies on a model trained on curated data, Watsonx Code Assistant can help enterprises improve code quality by propagating best practices through code recommendations, instead of polluting enterprise code bases with code generated by models trained on unvetted repositories.”

“With this launch, Watsonx Code Assistant joins Watsonx Orchestrate and Watsonx Assistant in IBM’s growing line of Watsonx assistants that provide enterprises with tangible ways to implement generative AI,” said Kareem Yusuf, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Product Management and Growth, IBM Software. “Watsonx Code Assistant puts AI-assisted code development and application modernization tools directly into the hands of developers – in a naturally integrated way that is designed to be non-disruptive – to help address skills gaps and increase productivity.”

Moreover, IBM Consulting offers extensive domain knowledge across these specific use cases, collaborating closely with clients in diverse sectors including banking, insurance, healthcare, and government. Together, they formulate strategic approaches, enabling organizations to harness the power of generative AI and code generation, thereby accelerating their modernization efforts.

IT Automation – IBM Watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed

The Ansible Automation Platform empowers enterprise developers and IT operators to automate various IT tasks like infrastructure management, hybrid cloud deployment, network configuration, and application deployment using Ansible Playbooks. IBM WatsonX Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed enhances this platform by enabling users to input plain English prompts. These prompts automatically generate task recommendations for Ansible Playbooks, ensuring adherence to best practices in task creation and maintenance. This approach allows a wider range of team members to efficiently create Ansible Playbooks, resulting in automation that is more resilient and easier to support, even without extensive training.

Technical Preview Key Data:

Approximately 4,000 developers participated in the technical preview. 85% overall average acceptance rate of the AI-generated content recommendations. (from July 27 – Oct 23, 2023, based on over 41,000 recommendations). Productivity improvements in the range of 20-45%.

“Red Hat has already shown what domain-specific AI can do for IT automation at the community level,” said Ashesh Badani, Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer, at Red Hat. “The release of Watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed has the potential to close skills gaps, create greater organizational efficiencies, and free enterprise IT to deliver even more business value.”

The Hybrid Cloud Platforms team within the IBM CIO Office uses Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to support a wide range of tasks within their IT environment whether it’s patching, resolving vulnerabilities, or running regular health checks of their systems. Bob Epstein, Leader of IBM CIO Hybrid Cloud Platforms, expects that the number of developers able to produce Ansible Playbooks with the full release version could increase as much as 10x as Watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed empowers other team members such as Site Reliability Engineers who can use natural language to generate Ansible-specific automation tasks.

“I like to look at our modernization journey in these stages: In the past we were crawling, doing a lot of things manually. Then, when we started automating, we were walking. Once we implemented the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, we were running. And as we look ahead, with Watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed, I think we will be able to fly,” said Robert Barron, Architect, Hybrid Cloud Platforms, IBM CIO Office.

Mainframe Application Modernisation – IBM Watsonx Code Assistant for Z

IBM WatsonX Code Assistant for Z facilitates the swift translation of COBOL to Java on IBM Z, boosting developer efficiency on the platform. Engineered to harness generative AI and automated tools, it empowers businesses to expedite their mainframe application modernization efforts. Clients can capitalize on the high performance, security, and resiliency features of IBM Z while enhancing their applications rapidly.

Presently, the product guides the application modernization journey, commencing with an application discovery feature that comprehensively maps the application and its dependencies. Subsequently, an automated refactoring tool utilizes the data from application discovery to identify specific elements, breaking down the monolithic application into modular COBOL business services. Lastly, WatsonX Code Assistant for Z employs generative AI to transform these individual COBOL business services into object-oriented Java code. The next phase in the lifecycle involves validation testing. In a forthcoming release, the product is expected to facilitate automated test case generation, ensuring the validation of the new COBOL or Java services.

TCS and IBM share a longstanding partnership, cultivating a collaborative environment to create mutual successes for their customers and stakeholders. Building on this partnership and its extensive contextual expertise, TCS has established a purpose-driven, specialized, and comprehensive practice for in-place application modernization.

“There is a significant need for the developer productivity gains that generative AI can bring to transform applications on the mainframe,” said Keshav Varma, ISU Head, Technology, Software and Services Business Unit, TCS. “While Watsonx Code Assistant for Z has only just become available, we have several clients that have already requested that we create proofs of concept for them. With decades of enterprise experience from both our companies, we look forward to building on our deep partnership with IBM using Watsonx.”