IBM and Microsoft announced on 10 November 2026 a joint platform called Imagine Enterprise, designed to help large companies build, run and govern AI agents that carry out industry-specific work. The two companies said the platform is aimed first at regulated sectors, where firms need agents connected to their own data and daily processes rather than standalone chat tools.

IBM Consulting contributes more than 6,000 prebuilt AI agents and assets, built on its IBM Consulting Advantage delivery platform, along with its experience of putting agents into production. Microsoft supplies the AI, data, cloud and security foundation, and forward-deployed engineers from both companies will support qualifying customers moving from experiments to live use.

What the platform combines

Microsoft Foundry, GitHub Copilot and Copilot Studio help coordinate agents with enterprise systems, while Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft 365, Entra, Purview, Defender and Azure provide the data, identity, governance, security and cloud layers. On the IBM side, IBM Consulting Advantage's Process Studio, Context Studio and Advantage Core help organisations design, deploy and govern agents tailored to their own processes.

First industries and an early user

The industry frameworks initially cover financial services, insurance and retail, and are meant to form a repeatable blueprint for later additions such as manufacturing, energy, the public sector and mobility. Financial technology and asset management provider SEI is already exploring agentic technology with IBM Consulting and Microsoft support, looking at how it could improve processes for employees and clients. Read the Microsoft announcement and the PYMNTS report.