IBM Launches watsonx Code Assistant

• 26 Oct 2023
• TM Team
• 0 Comments

IBM launched watsonx Code Assistant, a generative AI-powered assistant that helps enterprise developers and IT operators code more quickly and more accurately using natural language prompts. The product currently delivers on two specific enterprise use cases. First, IT Automation with watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed, for tasks such as network configuration and code deployment. Second, mainframe application modernization with watsonx Code Assistant for Z, for translation of COBOL to Java on IBM Z.

Designed to accelerate development while maintaining the principles of trust, security, and compliance, the product leverages generative AI based on IBM's Granite foundation models for code running on IBM's watsonx platform. Granite uses the decoder architecture, which underpins large language model capabilities to predict what is next in a sequence to support natural language processing tasks. IBM is exploring opportunities to tune watsonx Code Assistant with additional domain-specific generative AI capabilities to assist in code generation, code explanation, and the full end-to-end software development lifecycle to continue to drive 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."² 

"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, 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."

Additionally, IBM Consulting brings deep domain expertise across these use cases working closely with clients across industries such as banking, insurance, healthcare and government, to build strategies to allow them to take advantage of the potential of generative AI and code generation to accelerate modernization.