IBM Bob is the AI Assistant Built for Enterprise Development on IBM i
IBM i forms the bedrock of many organizations’ IT infrastructure, yet those same companies are grappling with a new set of problems and pressures.
Experienced RPG developers are nearing retirement, leadership demands justification for any investments, and development teams are expected to innovate without increasing headcount. Companies need to modernize, but they need to do so practically, with the staff and codebase they already have in place.
That’s why IBM recently released IBM Bob, an AI-powered development partner that’s designed specifically for enterprise needs and that understands the context where IBM i users live.
At COMMON POWERUp 2026 in New Orleans, Louisiana, we got a first look at IBM Bob during the keynote presentation by Tim Rowe, Business Architect for Application Development at IBM.
Whether you missed the conference, need a quick reminder, or want to share these new developments with your colleagues, keep reading to learn how IBM Bob is solving some of the most pressing issues faced by IBM i shops today.
What Is IBM Bob?
IBM Bob is an AI-powered coding assistant built for enterprise software development. While it supports a broad range of languages and platforms—Java, Python, Node.js, Linux, AIX, Z, and more—its capabilities have been specifically extended for the IBM i community, with deep support for RPG, COBOL, DDS, SQL, and CL.
Bob is integrated into a VS Code–based integrated development environment (IDE). The tool can handle tasks like understanding and explaining legacy code, refactoring code (for instance by renaming variables into meaningful, human-readable form), as well as generating and testing new code.
“One of the things that’s different about Bob is the concept of enterprise at work,” explained Rowe. “You all have businesses that you’re running, and your businesses have security, compliance, and governance that needs to be taken into account. Bob was put into place with that as our backdrop.”
Why Bob Matters for IBM i Users
The IBM i platform has a long history of backward compatibility. Code written for AS/400 in the mid-1980s still runs on modern Power Systems hardware.
That continuity has been a strength, but it has also meant that many shops are still maintaining fixed-format RPG programs with cryptic variable names, no documentation, and no unit tests.
Modern RPG, which is free-format, modular, and readable, has been around for over 15 years. The challenge has always been bridging the gap between legacy code and the modern form.
Bob provides practical, AI-assisted tools to do exactly that.
Core Capabilities of IBM Bob AI
During the keynote presentation, Rowe showed a live demo of using IBM Bob to work on a legacy RPG application from the ’80s. Here’s a look at what it can do.
Understanding and Documentation
Bob can analyze an entire application, not just individual programs, to produce architecture documents, entity relationship diagrams, data flow diagrams, and executive summaries.
For a legacy codebase with little or no documentation, this alone has significant value. It gives both developers and leadership a clear picture of what the system actually does.
These generated documents can be stored in source control alongside the code. When Bob is later asked to make changes, it can read these documents to build context quickly, reducing token usage and improving output quality.
Code Analysis and Improvement Recommendations
Bob can review existing code and produce categorized improvement recommendations, covering areas like code architecture, error handling, performance, and security.
It identifies specific lines of concern and suggests concrete remediation steps. In the demonstration, Bob flagged plaintext password storage in the legacy RPG login program and provided guidance on how to address it.
Refactoring and Modernization
Bob can convert fixed-format RPG to free-format, rename cryptic indicator variables to human-readable names, and restructure monolithic code into modular patterns, all while respecting any constraints the developer specifies.
The quality of output scales with the quality of the prompt; more specific instructions produce better results.
Adding New Features
Bob can make coordinated changes across multiple file types simultaneously. In the live demonstration, adding a new "airplane type" field to a flight maintenance application required updates to the physical file, logical file, display file, and RPG program.
Bob handled all of these in sequence, including generating the updated screen layout. This eliminates the need for tools like Screen Design Aid (SDA), which was deprecated in IBM i 7.6.
Testing and Documentation Maintenance
Bob can assist with writing unit test cases and, through command line execution capabilities in the premium package, can compile code, run tests, and measure code coverage directly on the IBM i system.
It can also keep documentation current as changes are made, solving the perennial problem of documentation falling out of sync with the codebase.
Enterprise-Grade Security and Governance
A key differentiator for Bob is that security, governance, and data privacy were built into the product from the start.
IBM i customers are enterprise organizations with compliance requirements, and Bob was designed with that context in mind. Your code and intellectual property remain yours; they are not used to train external models or shared outside your environment.
Bob also supports configurable approval workflows: Developers can review and approve each action Bob takes before it executes, or they can enable auto-approval for faster iteration.
The IBM i Premium Package
IBM's Rochester development team has been building a premium package specifically for IBM i shops. It includes several meaningful extensions:
IBM i Developer Mode: A configured persona orients Bob toward IBM i–native languages and platform conventions, so it understands the nuances of RPG, COBOL, DDS, CL, and SQL without requiring constant re-explanation.
Native IBM i Connectivity: Bob has the ability to connect directly to QSYS library file systems and IFS paths in order to work with source code where it actually lives on the system, not just in a local VS Code workspace.
IBM i Toolset: Approximately 30 tools enable Bob to read and write to QSYS and IFS, execute CL commands, compile programs, and run test cases natively on the IBM i.
Skills Library: Around 40 predefined skill sets give Bob specific, curated guidance for common IBM i tasks. Examples include replacing record-level access with SQL, writing RPG unit tests, and converting legacy code patterns. Skills encode the "gotchas" and platform-specific knowledge that would otherwise require detailed prompting every time.
RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) Support: A curated library of IBM i documentation is fed into Bob's context, including IBM Docs content covering AS/400 through current releases, RPG Café resources, and SQL Services documentation. This allows Bob to answer IBM i–specific questions with accuracy, even on topics that postdate its base model training.
Practical Considerations for Using IBM Bob
Bob's output quality is directly tied to prompt quality. Vague instructions produce ambiguous results, just as they would with a junior developer. Specific, well-formed prompts (specifying what to change, what to leave alone, and what the desired outcome looks like) produce significantly better results.
Bob also operates in different modes. For instance, plan mode is suited for analysis and diagnosis, while code mode is used when actually writing or modifying code. Switching to the appropriate mode before executing a task improves accuracy.
Getting Started with IBM Bob
Bob is available now. During COMMON POWERUp 2026, IBM announced the global availability of IBM Bob. IBM has also published a library of YouTube demonstrations for further reference.
For IBM i shops weighing their options, Bob represents an enterprise-class AI development tool with native IBM i support, built by the people who maintain the platform and available without a complex procurement process.
Remember that there’s a lot more to modernization than just refactoring code. If you’re ready to upgrade to future-ready infrastructure, get in touch with CloudFirst today to learn about cloud hosting, cyber resilience, and managed services.