IBM and Microsoft introduced Imagine Enterprise on November 10, an AI agent platform that combines more than 6,000 prebuilt AI agents and related assets with Microsoft's cloud infrastructure, PYMNTS reported. It is aimed at banks, insurers and retailers automating business processes. PYMNTS noted that the 6,000 figure includes agents and other assets, not only deployable agents.
IBM's share comes from Consulting Advantage, its existing platform for building and deploying AI applications, plus Process Studio, Context Studio and Advantage Core for agent configuration, deployment and oversight. Microsoft supplies Foundry, Copilot Studio and GitHub Copilot for building and coordinating agents, Fabric for enterprise data, Entra for identities and access, Purview for data governance and Defender for security. Engineers from both companies will work directly with qualifying customers to integrate agents into existing software and move them into production.
PYMNTS reported in September that fewer than 7% of Microsoft's 450 million commercial Microsoft 365 seats carry paid Copilot licenses. Microsoft 365 Copilot costs $30 per user per month, while newer agent capabilities are billed by usage. A November PYMNTS Intelligence report found agentic AI in use at 89% of large US enterprises, but 78% would limit agents to read-only access to company directories, 18% would allow tasks with human approval and 2% would permit independent execution.