When IBM first introduced watsonx Assistant for Z, it caught the attention of mainframe professionals everywhere. Finally, generative AI was coming to our beloved big iron! But as someone who started their career writing COBOL and now helps clients modernize their mainframe environments, I’ve learned to approach shiny new tools with both excitement and healthy skepticism.
And that’s exactly the lens I’ve been using to evaluate the tool. After watching its evolution since launch and seeing it in action, I’m ready to share my unfiltered thoughts on what works, what doesn’t, and where this tool really shines.
A quick refresher: What is watsonx Assistant for Z?
Let me build on what my colleague Tomo Mašić expertly outlined in his recent blog post. Think of watsonx Assistant for Z as your AI-powered mainframe mentor – one that’s been fed every IBM Z manual, Redbook, and documentation ever written.
The tool offers two core capabilities:
1. Knowledge at Your Fingertips
Ask it anything about mainframe operations, and it pulls from IBM’s vast knowledge base using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). And the best thing: You can feed it your own documentation too. This “Bring Your Own Documentation” feature is what transforms watsonx Assistant for Z from a generic assistant into something that understands YOUR environment.
2. Intelligent Automation
Built on IBM’s watsonx Orchestrate platform, watsonx Assistant for Z can recommend and execute automated tasks. Import your existing Ansible playbooks or z/OSMF scripts, and watsonx Assistant for Z becomes your automation orchestrator.
What’s New Since January?
(The updates that actually matter)
The pace of development has been impressive. Since Tomo’s blog, IBM has rolled out some new helpful features:
Multilingual Support (June 2025, v2.2.5)
watsonx Assistant for Z now speaks Japanese, French, Portuguese, Italian, and German. For global organizations, this is huge – imagine your Rome team getting mainframe guidance in Italian while your Munich office operates in German.
And yes, Croatian is still missing, but I’m sure IBM is working on supporting even more languages.
Linux on Z Support (March 2025, v2.2)
You can now run watsonx Assistant for Z directly on Linux on IBM Z (yes, with the s390x architecture!).
While this hybrid deployment model still depends on x86 for your LLMs (since there is no Spyre Card yet) it is a step closer to your mainframe workloads.
Enhanced RAG with Structured Metadata (July 2025, v2.2.6)
This is where things get a bit technical, but bear with me:
The new structured metadata ingestion creates abstracts and mind maps for documents, dramatically improving how watsonx Assistant for Z finds and ranks information.
Translation: Better, more relevant answers.
Operational Insights Integration (December 2024, v2.1 and March 2025, v2.2)
Integration with OMEGAMON means watsonx Assistant for Z can now tell you about LPAR health, identify CPU hogs, and surface Db2 buffer pool issues. It’s becoming less of a documentation assistant and more of an operational command center.
My Honest Assessment: Where watsonx Assistant for Z Excels
1. The Onboarding Revolution
Here’s where watsonx Assistant for Z truly shines. I’ve seen junior developers struggle for weeks to understand basic mainframe concepts that senior folks take for granted (haven’t we all been there?). watsonx Assistant for Z changes this game completely.
Instead of fumbling through outdated PDFs or bothering the one remaining z/OS expert every five minutes, new team members can have natural conversations about concepts. “How do I allocate a dataset with specific DCB parameters?” gets a contextual answer with your organization’s naming conventions baked in.
2. Knowledge Democratization
We all know that one sysprog who’s been around since what feels like forever and knows nearly everything. watsonx Assistant for Z lets you capture that knowledge before they retire. Upload their documentation, procedures, and best practices – suddenly that expertise is available to everyone – 24/7!
3. The Automation Sweet Spot
Need to check a CICS regions? Run a quick JES2 health check? Start a stopped task? These everyday operations are now becoming conversational instead of requiring you to remember cryptic commands. Especially for new mainframers a simplification.
The Reality Check: Where It Falls Short
Now, let me be brutally honest about where watsonx Assistant for Z still struggles:
1. The Context Problem
While watsonx Assistant for Z knows a lot about mainframes in general, it doesn’t truly understand YOUR mainframe. I mean, yes, you can upload your documentation, but it can’t read between the lines like an experienced human can. It doesn’t know that your disaster recovery procedures are outdated, or that the “standard” way of doing something doesn’t work in your specific LPAR configuration.
2. Complex Problem Solving
When your IMS database is corrupted at 2 AM and transactions are backing up, you need someone who can think outside the box, correlate seemingly unrelated symptoms, and make judgment calls under pressure. watsonx Assistant for Z definitely is great for standard procedures, but crisis management still requires your human experts.
3. The Learning Curve for Builders
Creating effective skills and automations isn’t trivial. You need to understand both the technical aspects and how to structure workflows in a way that makes sense conversationally. Many organizations will need dedicated resources to build and maintain their watsonx Assistant for Z implementation properly. If your organization needs assistance with this, CROZ is here to help. We have a kickstart package designed to get you up and running faster and maximize your installation’s potential.
Where watsonx Assistant for Z Makes Business Sense
After seeing multiple environments, here’s where I recommend focusing watsonx Assistant for Z implementations:
Level 1 Operations Centers
This is the perfect fit! Most L1 tasks are procedural and well-documented. watsonx Assistant for Z can handle the routine stuff while escalating complex issues to senior staff.
Development Teams with Mixed Experience
If you have seasoned mainframers working alongside newer developers, watsonx Assistant for Z becomes the bridge that lets junior folks contribute meaningfully without constant mentoring overhead.
Organizations with Compliance Requirements
The audit trail and consistent procedures that watsonx Assistant for Z provides are gold for regulated industries. Every action is logged; every procedure is followed exactly.
The Hard Truth: What It Can’t Fix
watsonx Assistant for Z is impressive, but it’s not magic. It won’t:
- Solve your fundamental skills shortage overnight
- Replace the need for mainframe expertise in your organization
- Handle edge cases and custom configurations without significant setup
- Make strategic architectural decisions for you
Think of it as an extremely capable intern who’s memorized every manual but lacks real-world experience and judgment (at least for now).
A note on pricing: As expected, watsonx Assistant for Z represents a substantial investment, so we suggest incorporating it into your Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) for better value.
Looking Forward: The Agent Revolution
Here’s something we can’t discuss in detail (yet), but IBM has hinted at native Z agents coming to watsonx Assistant for Z very soon.
The current automation capabilities (skills) present a significant limitation: They depend entirely on pre-existing Ansible scripts or z/OSMF workflows. This creates a barrier for organizations just beginning their automation journey: You must first build the underlying scripts/workflows before you can leverage watsonx Assistant for Z’s automation features.
And for teams with established automation, wrapping existing scripts in a conversational interface provides limited additional value.
Agents represent a fundamental shift in this paradigm: Imagine AI agents that can natively interact with your mainframe systems and not just provide instructions for humans to follow. That’s potentially transformational – and we will know more about this soon.
Bottom line
IBM watsonx Assistant for Z isn’t revolutionary, but it’s genuinely useful – especially if you implement it thoughtfully. It won’t replace your mainframe experts, but it will make them more effective and help bridge the skills gap that’s keeping many of us up at night.
For organizations serious about mainframe modernization, watsonx Assistant for Z represents a solid investment in operational efficiency and knowledge management. Just don’t expect miracles – expect a really smart assistant that gets better the more you teach it.
The mainframe isn’t going anywhere, but the way we interact with it is definitely evolving. watsonx Assistant for Z is a meaningful step in that evolution, even if it’s not the final destination.
