How IBM and AWS Are Turning Agentic AI from Promise to Production

Agentic AI does not matter if it stays in slides. What matters is whether it can run safely in production. After AWS re:Invent, I sat down with Hemant Mohan from Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a follow up conversation focused on agentic AI and the AWS and IBM partnership. This discussion was less about announcements and more about what actually changes for enterprises now.Here is the core of what stood out.- AI is moving from response to actionWe are past the phase of just experimenting with models. The next phase is agentic AI systems that can reason, plan, and execute across tools and workflows. Business problems are never single step. They involve legacy systems, approvals, fragmented data, and humans in the loop. Agents are built to work across that reality.- Why the AWS and IBM partnership mattersMany enterprises struggle with the same question. How do we move agents from proof of concept to production without breaking security, compliance, or reliability? This partnership is about solving that gap. AWS brings the trusted, global infrastructure to run agents at scale. IBM brings orchestration, governance, and deep enterprise integration. Together, they give customers a clear path from experimentation to operational trust.- From promise to productionIBM becoming a launch partner for the AWS Marketplace AI and Tools category was an important signal. Customers want flexibility and choice, but they also want enterprise grade controls. This partnership is designed to give them both.- Watson Orchestrate and Amazon Bedrock Agent CoreAnnounced at re:Invent, this integration brings together AWS’s managed runtime for agents with IBM’s orchestration layer. The result is a full agentic stack where agents can run securely, maintain context, be audited, and coordinate across complex business workflows. This is what running agents responsibly actually looks like.- Project BobWe also spoke about IBM’s Project Bob, which tackles a problem many enterprises quietly struggle with. Most development budgets still go toward modernizing old code instead of building new features. Project Bob brings agentic AI into software modernization, helping teams refactor faster, reduce risk, and deal with long standing skill shortages.My takeaway.Agentic AI will not be adopted because it is powerful. It will be adopted because it is trustworthy. The AWS and IBM partnership is focused exactly on that transition.Learn more about the partnership here -- https://lnkd.in/gyRRuvdk#data #ai #awsreinvent #agents #agenticai #aws #enterprise #IBM #theravitshow