The initiative signals a move beyond conversational AI toward intelligent systems capable of reasoning and taking action within enterprise environments.
At the 2026 World Economic Forum, IBM and e& unveiled a governed, action-oriented agentic AI solution built on watsonx Orchestrate, IBM’s platform built to power AI-driven automation of advanced business tasks.
Designed to move beyond simple chatbots, the system embeds directly into core operations, starting with risk, compliance, and policy management, to help auditors and employees interpret complex regulatory data with full traceability.
“Our ambition is to move beyond isolated AI use cases toward enterprise-scale agentic AI that is trusted, governed, and deeply integrated into how the organization operates,” said Hatem Dowidar, Group Chief Executive Officer at e&, in a statement.
IBM, e&, and GBM successfully demonstrated the scalability of the agentic AI solution via an accelerated eight-week proof of concept. The project leveraged IBM’s technical design leadership alongside GBM’s deep platform and delivery expertise.
“As organizations move from experimenting with AI to embedding it into the fabric of how they operate, governance and accountability become just as important as intelligence,” said IBM’s Ana Paula Assis, adding that the collaboration with e& aims to show how agentic AI can be safely integrated into core systems for enterprise use while supporting human-led decision-making.
The approach enables AI agents to reason, orchestrate tasks, and operate under governance controls, accelerating compliance processes and enabling round-the-clock self-service.
