IBM Gets Bob 1.0 Off The Ground
March 2, 2026 Alex Woodie
IBM this month finally will get a coding co-pilot into the hands of its IBM i installed base with the launch of Bob. The general availability of Bob 1.0.0 on March 24 will mark the end of the long wait for IBM i customers – and in particular, the large population of RPG developers – to start using IBM-branded AI software to maintain and develop IBM i software.
The world of generative AI moves quickly, as the large language models (LLMs) from frontier providers improve on a weekly, if not daily, basis. This is both exciting, as the capabilities of coding co-pilots, chatbots, and AI agents get better and better, but also challenging. While it is already counting revenue from a mainframe coding co-pilot, IBM has struggled to plant a stake in the fast-moving ground and create an AI product they can sell to its midrange masses.
IBM tried to get ahead of the game when it introduced “Project Bob” to the world at the TechExchange 2025 developer conference in October 2025. The new AI-powered coding assistant would replace the Watsonx Code Assistant that IBM had already rolled out for System Z mainframe. It would also take the place of the Code Assist for RPG product that IBM’s Rochester lab had been developing for the IBM i community since IBM i CTO Steve Will announced it the POWERUp 2024 conference in May 2024.
While the Code Assist for RPG product – which IBM rebranded Watsonx Code Assistant for i – was making progress understanding how RPG code works, thanks to reams of RPG source code that IBM i customers were donating to the project, it apparently did not make progress fast enough to keep up with the wider AI world.
In early 2024, AI models, including IBM Granite models used in Watsonx Code Assistant products, were struggling to understand RPG code. As a proprietary language that’s only used on the IBM i line of computers, RPG is much more sheltered than the more open COBOL languages that execute the business logic in IBM mainframes. But by late 2025, the leading foundation models, such as Anthropic’s Claude, had shown remarkable progress in understanding, documenting, and writing this bizarre language we call RPG.
This unexpected progress in RPG drove IBM to rethink its approach, and the result was Bob, which uses a multi-model approach that melds its own Granite foundation models along with Anthropic’s Claude, Meta’s Llama, and Mistral AI.
While Bob is ostensibly a coding co-pilot that will assist developers with their workflows, such as understanding, documenting, and even generating code, it actually does quite a bit more than that, Will said during a presentation late last year. “It’s more than just a chatbot. It’s more than just a code assistant,” the IBM i Chief Architect said. “It can understand what you are trying to do.”
Bob will be able to explain, refactor, generate, transform, and test code on IBM i in a variety of languages, including RPG, CL, SQL, COBOL, Java, and Python. The software, which will be delivered as a VS Code plug-in, will be able to assist with code modernization projects, such as upgrading from fixed-format RPG III to free-format RPG IV. It works in English and Spanish, according to Will’s December presentation, with more languages expected.
According to Will, Bob has knowledge of how IBM i works beyond the basics. It seems to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of using one language versus another on IBM i, such as mixing RPG and Java to develop an application, he said. It also seems to know about Db2 for i performance characteristics, and has security understanding built-in.
For example, Will asked Bob to make some security recommendations about a database structure during his December presentation, and Bob responded with some helpful advice. “It’s more than a code assistant,” Will said. “It knows things about IBM i and how IBM i can be attacked, what you ought to do when you’re writing a piece of software for IBM i and it can try to answer you. This is way more than a code assistant.”
None of these details are in IBM’s February 20 software announcement, where describes Bob as an “AI software development lifecycle partner” that can help developers “understand, plan, improve, and work confidently” with their application code bases. The most helpful verbiage in IBM’s announcement may have been that Bob supports Model Context Protocol (MCP), the so-called USB port for AI, which will allow customers to plug Bob into all sorts of other tools.
The IBM Services Description for the new product says key Bob features “include the ability to generate code, refactor and debug, write and update documentation, answer questions, automate tasks, and create files and projects.” IBM is selling Bob as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) (or XaaS [Anything as a Service], as the IBM marketing whizzes coined it).
Several editions of Bob (5900-BVU) are on offer, including Pro, Pro Plus, Ultra, and Enterprise. IBM will also be giving away a free trial of Bob that people can use for up to 30 days. The paid versions of Bob come with technical support, while the free 30-day trial does not.
Bob Pro is the base version of Bob, and comes with 40 bobcoins (the same as in the free 30-day trial). For Bob Pro, buying 40 bobcoins, or resource units (RUs), cost $20 per user per month. There’s also a $3 per month fee for support for Bob Pro. Bob Pro Plus comes with 160 bobcoins, and another 160 bobcoins (or RUs) cost $60 per month. There’s also a $9 per month fee for support for Bob Pro Plus. Bob Ultra comes with 500 bobcoins, and each additional 500 RUs cost $200 per month. There’s also a $30 per month fee for support for Bob Ultra.
Bob Enterprise includes the base Bob functionality and adds several features, including detailed usage reporting, individual and team quota management, and single sign-on (SSO) integration. Customers must buy subscriptions for Bob clients, which are $20 per use per month. They also must buy bobcoins, which can be pooled among Bob users. One RU for Bob Enterprise is about $500 per month. There’s also a $75 per year fee for Bob Enterprise pooled consumption RU support.
We’re interested to hear what IT Jungle readers think of Bob. You can contact us here to send a note, about Bob or anything else.
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