IBM and Microsoft have launched a joint artificial intelligence platform designed to help large companies build, run and govern AI agents that carry out industry-specific work. The platform, called Imagine Enterprise, was announced on Tuesday 10 November 2026.

The two companies said the platform is aimed at organisations, especially in regulated industries, that want to combine human expertise with AI agents connected to their own data and daily processes. Rather than offering a single generic assistant, Imagine Enterprise is built around frameworks for particular sectors, starting with financial services, insurance and retail.

More than 6,000 ready-built agents

IBM Consulting is contributing a library of more than 6,000 prebuilt AI agents and assets, built on its IBM Consulting Advantage delivery platform, along with its experience of putting AI systems into production. Microsoft is supplying the underlying AI, data, cloud and security technology on which the agents run.

Forward-deployed engineers from both companies will support qualifying engagements, working inside customer organisations to help them deploy AI agents more quickly. The companies said the combination of ready-made agents and hands-on engineering support is intended to shorten the time between deciding to use AI agents and having them working on real business processes.

Regulated industries first

The announcement places particular emphasis on regulated sectors, where companies need tight control over what AI agents can access and do. Imagine Enterprise is designed to let businesses govern agents across their data and processes, rather than running them as disconnected tools.

The companies pointed to SEI, a financial technology and asset management services firm, as an example of the kind of enterprise transformation the platform is meant to support, where AI agents help staff execute complex, industry-specific processes.

What happens next

Customers can take up the platform by engaging IBM Consulting to deploy and operate it on their behalf, or by working with IBM Consulting on a joint, enterprise-scale implementation. The industry frameworks are designed as a repeatable blueprint, with manufacturing, energy, the public sector and mobility identified as possible additions in future.

No pricing was disclosed in the announcement. The launch comes as technology companies race to sell agentic AI, systems in which software agents carry out multi-step tasks with limited human input, to large enterprises. IBM and Microsoft are betting that sector-specific agents, backed by governance and engineering support, will win over businesses that have so far been cautious about handing work to AI. Both companies have spent the past two years building out agent offerings, and this joint platform brings those efforts together under one name for the first time.