The future of enterprise automation isn't AI vs. Business Rules. It's AI + Business Rules.

AI excels at understanding data, generating insights, and making recommendations. Rules provide governance, consistency, explainability, and compliance.

As AI agents become more autonomous, they need guardrails. Rules help ensure decisions remain transparent, auditable, and aligned with business policy.

IBM has a dedicated session at IBM TechXchange 2026 on how AI Agents, Decision Intelligence, and Business Rules work together to create trusted enterprise decisions.

Looking forward to like-minded enthusiasts joining this interesting session to discuss

✅ Agentic AI and its application in regulated industries
✅ Decision Automation
✅ AI Governance
✅ Enterprise AI

Register here: https://www.ibm.com/events/techxchange
And join the user group: Decision Intelligence – User Group ( MUP-4645  |  MUP-4646 )

Question: Will the future belong to AI acting alone, or AI operating within policy-driven guardrails?

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share a deep dive into one of the most pivotal moments in enterprise computing history: the development and launch of the IBM System/360 in 1964.

What fascinates me most about the S/360 project is the sheer scale of the risk. Tom Watson Jr. basically bet the entire future of IBM on a unified architecture. Before the 360, buying a computer meant getting locked into a specific family of machines with incompatible instruction sets and peripherals, upgrading meant rewriting virtually all software from scratch.

A few key aspects that made this project so legendary:

• Backward compatibility & unified architecture: Moving from small commercial machines to massive scientific mainframes on a single instruction set architecture was unheard of at the time.
• Solid Logic Technology (SLT): While not fully integrated circuits yet, SLT bridged the gap between discrete transistors and microchips, setting manufacturing standards.
• The astronomical cost: At around $5 billion (equivalent to over $40+ billion today), it cost more than the Manhattan Project!

I recently put together a detailed video covering the engineering challenges, the internal politics at IBM during its development, and how the S/360 set the standard for computing for decades to come.

If you’re a history/tech enthusiast and want to check out the visual breakdown, you can watch it here: IBM Spent More Than the Manhattan Project on One Computer.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially from anyone here who has worked on, maintained, or studied S/360/z/Architecture systems firsthand!

I stumbled across this IBM report from April talking about outcome-based contracting, in this case for government. Suspiciously, also found another article about the same topic from around the same time, but about transitioning to outcome-based contracts at McKinsey. The latter puts some context around outcome-based rather than hourly contracts, while the IBM report makes it sound like altruism is the driving force, which we all know is BS.

What's the reality these days? Are there real (publicly announced of course) examples of outcome-based contracts these days? How well does this work in practice with regard to specifications and deliveries?

So I've got an interview for this position on Monday, and I feel ready and have done a lot of research on the role; however, in the pursuit of answers, I wasn't able to find any actual experiences from people actually in this role. So my question is, what does the normal day-to-day life actually look like for this role? I'm in my last semester of CS and have a strong networking + automation background.

Getting Started with IBM Bob: A Hands-On Tutorial

I worked there. It was terrible. Horrible middle and upper management. Terrible decisions that lost contracts that were set aside for IBM to win. Most top employees have already ditched. IBM Federal Consulting MP Susan is “leaving” with a new “strategic program executive” coming in to work for her. In other words: a sell off or a managed liquidation. If you work for IBM Fed get out while you can.

Ex IBMer here. When i was here i was told Bob would be one of the only B2B companies selling IDEs and the ONLY to do on-prem (few months ago.)

Do you guys still think Bob has a shot in this current market? Will large clients be convinced this kind of IDE+ on prem is the difference maker to be better than cursor/claude code/copilot ?

Hello everyone,

I'm hoping someone in this community can help me learn more about my grandmother, Carmen Luisa Araya, who worked as a COBOL programmer at IBM in New York City.

According to my family's history, she worked at IBM from approximately 1975 until the late 1980s, possibly at the company's offices in the World Trade Center (Twin Towers).

I'm trying to learn more about her professional career, including the projects she worked on, the mainframe systems she may have used, and whether any technical documentation, archived records, employee directories, or internal publications from that period might still exist.

Unfortunately, the IBM Archives email address I previously had is no longer working, so I'm looking for alternative ways to contact IBM Archives or connect with former IBM employees who might be able to point me in the right direction.

If you worked with COBOL at IBM in New York during the 1970s or 1980s, worked at the World Trade Center offices, or remember a colleague named Carmen Araya, I would be very grateful to hear from you.

I'm based in Chile, and this research is deeply meaningful to me. My grandmother's career as a programmer is an important part of our family history, and I would love to preserve and learn more about her professional legacy.

Even a small clue, a suggested archive, or a contact who might be able to help would mean a great deal to me.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post!

Hi IBMers! After several, hard months of applying to design jobs, I finally got moved to the interview stage for IBM's Associate Designer role. I just wanted to create a post asking for any tips and/or insights on the interview process for a role like this.

Thanks !!!

I swear, I have never worked somewhere that was more interactive - chat - right - now dependent.

I’ve posted everywhere on w3, in statuses, instructed, added to email signatures - but it feels like fighting an uphill cultural battle.
I have a corporate phone, and have published it everywhere, but it never rings.
I have about 3-5 hours a day I am in transit and cannot be at a keyboard, but can take phone calls easily. Many things can be solved with a quick call.
Or asynchronously via email or a ticket or a GitHub issue or pull request or something else that has been proven to work at global scale with distributed teams.

But everyone at ibm insists on slack slack slack slack constant inundation of DM’s 24x7, with the expectation that you answer each one right away (despite the 50 other ones that are doing the same thing to you simultaneously, and also not using any existing channel appropriate for the topic).

Because they are special?

EVERY person seems to need immediate, personal individual attention (not handled by a team.)

I’ve also tried to call back people that are bombarding my DM’s while I’m busy with something else or just constantly bombarding DMS. The response is always something like can’t talk. I’m on a call right now. Well respectfully, if what you were asking for was so important or truly urgent couldn’t you stop the call that you were on and pick up the phone for only five minutes and focus your attention to an interactive conversation on the phone? Apparently not.

Is this all modern work culture now, or is this specific to ibm?

I have heard they have gotten strict about RTO in Ireland now. Previously it wasn't enforced. Can someone please clarify what the new rules are and how it's enforced?

I am an employee, but on extended sick leave without email access, so I haven't received any of the RTO emails so I am hoping someone here can share please.

IBM recently announced that Bob, IBM's agentic software development product, would be available in self-hosted, etc. versions, e.g. see: https://www.tradingview.com/news/benzinga:13a071da4094b:0-ibm-is-betting-ai-s-next-big-market-won-t-live-in-the-cloud/

It sort of makes sense, like a few years ago addressing IBM Cloud more toward finance/Federal markets rather trying to becoming a generic cloud contender. Not sure how this will take off —the impression I have is that the most advanced models from Anthropic, OpenAI, etc. do not offer self-hosted versions, so a self-hosted Bob's model router would only be able to access less-capable models that also offer self-hosting, otherwise what would be the point?

Hey folks just want to know what people think about CloudPak for AIOPs (Concert Operate)?

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/09/29/tech-san-jose-ibm-almaden-build-economy-ai-data-property-internet-jobs/

I think only visited once during my career, I remember it was a pretty nice site. It's sad to see IBM being sold off in bits and pieces. At least it looks like they're renovating rather than bulldozing it.

And some conspicuous by their absence

I could swear I've been seeing stories like this for years: https://www.sciencealert.com/ibms-quantum-computer-completes-in-19-seconds-what-could-take-a-supercomputer-a-century

And it looks like IBM's still putting money into quantum: https://midhudsonnews.com/2026/09/29/town-to-get-millions-for-ibm-quantum-project-2/

Can someone explain if there is an IBM Retirees Health Plan in Canada, and details associated with it?

I have been put in pip for 90 days in Ireland. No negative feedbacks in the past years of working in IBM , suddenly am put in pip'ed for unwanted reason. 6 people in our team is put in pip , does that mean all 6 will be kicked or as per IBM they mentioned 73% of people pass PIP is that true ? Help me to understand is why they are firing people and planning to hire another 150 interns next year in ireland ? Can someone give me an idea ?

Should I just wear a dress shirt and some chinos ?