Welcome to your IBM i update for June 2026, your monthly digest into what’s happening within the IBM i community.
This month we visited the i-Power event in Milton Keynes and amongst the workshops and presentations, we learn more on the BOB premium edition for i and explore what it offers beyond the standard edition…
And don’t worry, there’s a COMMON Europe Special Episode coming soon…
iPower 2026 Conference in Milton Keynes June 2026
Now, at the beginning of June, i visited the i-Power event in Milton Keynes. It was a two day event with the first day being dedicated to workshops… and it’s with the workshops that we’ll start as there were many.
For the Update, I tend to focus on one particular session to give you a perspective on what’s included.
And for this episode, I’ll feature the IBM AI session which discussed BOB and WatsonX Orchestrate.
The all-day session was hosted by IBM’s very own Andrew Laidlaw.
The workshop was split into two halves, with the morning session focusing on IBM Bob.
IBM Bob workshop
Our very own Dylan (or Bob Dylan as he’s now called) was there, and he joined the session that included installation and set-up, plus a hands-on workshop including guided examples of RPG coding, refactoring and documentation, plus the opportunity to play with it further to create your own code.
In the days following the workshop, we took BOB for a spin ourselves, and you can read all about our initial thoughts here: AI for IBM i Development: Our Hands-On Review of IBM Bob
Agentic AI with watsonx Orchestrate with Andrew Laidlaw
The feedback from the morning session was extremely positive, and the packed room was eager to get back to it in the afternoon, where Andrew provided an insight into Agentic AI using IBM’s own Orchestrate platform, where they used the tool to generate new agents and automation to perform specific, unique business tasks.
Fresh from the workshop, I took the opportunity to debrief with Andrew to discuss the session and the pathway for modernisation and AI on IBM i.
I opened with a question on AI and asked if he felt that AI gives the IBM i Community a new way to modernise systems without having to replace them?
Andrew made the point that AI gives IBM i customers a new route to modernisation without necessarily replacing the systems they have spent decades building.
Tools such as IBM Bob can help teams better understand and document their existing code, while also supporting future planning, new functionality and integration with both IBM i native tools and external systems.
Rather than forcing organisations to start again, AI can help them unlock more value from the systems they already rely on.
You can watch the full interview here.
iPower Gala Dinner – Networking, Socialising, and Celebrating
After a full day of workshops, sessions and conversations, the gala dinner gave everyone a chance to relax, catch up and enjoy the social side of the i Power event.
These events are always about much more than the technical content.
They are about bringing the IBM i community together, giving people time to talk properly, share ideas, compare experiences and build relationships that often continue long after the conference has finished.
It was also a great reminder of what makes this community so special.
Around the room, you had developers, vendors, IBM champions, partners, customers and long-standing friends of the platform all sharing the same space.
Good food, good conversation and a few laughs along the way.
After a day spent looking at the future of IBM i, AI and modernisation, the evening was a chance to celebrate the people who continue to make this platform so important.
iPower Keynote with Scott Forstie – Using AI to combat IBM i key challenges
The following morning, Scott Forstie took to the stage for the keynote and opened with a simple but important message.
Your IBM i runs everything, and Bob is there to help you run faster.
That set the tone for the session, because this was not presented as just another AI experiment. It was positioned as a practical response to the very real pressure IBM i teams are under today.
Those pressures will sound familiar to many organisations:
- Critical systems are often supported by a shrinking pool of experienced people.
- Too much knowledge still sits in people’s heads rather than in documentation.
- New developers can take months to become productive on older codebases, while every change request carries a level of business continuity risk.
At the same time, modernisation pressure is growing, maintenance backlogs are getting larger, and teams are being asked to do more with the same resources, or in some cases, fewer.
The keynote then moved into how IBM Bob can help address those challenges with Andrew Laidlaw addressing the congregation.
The core message was that Bob supports productivity and modernisation across six key areas: understanding, explaining, refactoring, generating, transforming and testing.
In practical terms, that means helping new team members understand complex applications more quickly, generating documentation and diagrams, standardising code, accelerating new feature delivery, supporting modernisation from older RPG to more modern approaches, and reducing defect risk through generated tests.
What I thought was particularly interesting was that Bob was not positioned purely as a coding assistant.
The keynote described Bob as an AI-powered development partner across the whole IBM i software development lifecycle.
That means it has relevance not only for developers, but also for DevOps teams, business architects and CTOs:
- For developers, it supports planning, coding, debugging, compiling, documenting, testing and understanding.
- For DevOps, it can support deployment, CI/CD, testing and reviews.
- For architects, it can help extract business logic, identify system dependencies and support documentation.
- For CTOs, the focus is on reducing technical debt, improving workforce stability, lowering operational risk and speeding up innovation.
There was also a strong emphasis on the developer ecosystem around IBM i. The keynote referenced the Open VSX registry and showed how IBM i tooling is increasingly available through VS Code compatible editors.
That matters because it reinforces the direction of travel. IBM i development is continuing to move into more modern development environments, while still retaining the strengths of the platform.
Another important theme was context. Generic AI tools can be useful, but they can also guess when they do not understand the platform properly.
The message from the keynote was that Bob is being shaped to understand IBM i more deeply, using IBM i documentation, Redbooks and platform specific knowledge to provide more accurate and useful responses.
That is a major point for this community, because IBM i development is not generic development. It has its own language, patterns, tooling, database, operating environment and history. More on this later…
The keynote also included feedback from IBM i developers who have already used Bob. The examples focused on modernisation, design documentation, onboarding and test case creation.
One of the strongest themes was that Bob can help capture and share knowledge from large and complex applications, including programs with tens of thousands of lines of code.
That has obvious value when organisations are trying to onboard new developers or reduce dependency on a small number of senior people.
I will come on to the IBM Bob Premium Package for i shortly, because that deserves its own section.
But the wider message from the keynote was clear.
IBM is positioning Bob as a way to preserve critical business logic, reduce risk in change cycles, scale senior knowledge across teams, help new developers ramp faster, and shift IBM i teams from maintenance towards modernisation and innovation.
For me, the important point is that this is not about replacing IBM i developers.
It is about giving them better tools. Bob is being presented as a way to make existing teams more productive, help businesses understand the applications they already rely on, and support a more confident approach to modernisation.
IBM Bob Premium Package for i Overview
Now, Bob has been busy beavering away, swatting up on IBM i.
And as such, on June 24th, the Bob Premium Package for i was released to the IBM i Community. But what’s it all about and what makes it different from the standard package?
Well, in simple terms, it takes the foundation of IBM Bob and tailors it for IBM i.
The Bob Premium Package for i adds direct IBM i connectivity, RPG-focused skills, curated IBM i documentation, expert RPG code generation with IBM i nuanced refactoring, curated technical documentation and unit test generation.
That matters because it shows IBM is not approaching AI-assisted development on IBM i with a one-size-fits-all mindset.
Instead, Bob Premium Package for i appears designed as a platform-aware assistant that understands the realities of IBM i development, from RPG application structures through to the modernisation pressures many organisations are now facing.
Its another sign that IBM sees AI-assisted development not as a replacement for IBM i expertise, but as a way to help preserve, accelerate and extend it.
What separates the Bob Premium Package for i from IBM Bob?
The important distinction is that IBM Bob and the Bob Premium Package for i are not really competing versions of the same idea. It’s just that the premium package for i is a version of BOB especially made for the IBM i.
Think of Bob as a car… normal cars do a splendid job on the road, but when you head for the hills, you need a an off-roader, otherwise you’ll get stuck in the mud.
Yes, the Premium package for i is the car equivalent of a RangeRover.
So, while IBM Bob is the broader AI development partner… the Bob Premium Package for i builds on that foundation but takes it ‘higher’ in the mountainous world of IBM i.
Ok, so what separates it?
Well, the most important detail is that Bob Premium Package for i adds IBM i-native context – grounding the responses in IBM i application logic and native platform practices.
It adds direct connectivity, instead of relying on disconnected copy and paste.
The premium package for i will make use of the development partitions you have on your Power server, making the development and support of your environment familiar to your current practices, enabling read, write, compile, run SQL and test actions too.
It applied specialised skills, curated modes, prompts and workflows for specific RPG, SQL and DDS tasks… to help, understand, explain, refactor, generate, transform, test, compile and manage data too.
And it provides a unified workflow including old RPG to modern RPG routines, business rule extraction from monolithic programs, and DDS to DDL conversion… plus mode-specific commands focused on particular IBM i tasks.
And it’s these four points that explain why the Premium Package for i is different from normal Bob: it is intended to move AI assistance closer to the actual IBM i development workflow.
And why does this matter to IBM i Teams? Well, for IBM i teams, the value of Bob is practical.
It could help new developers understand older applications faster.
It could help experienced developers capture knowledge that may currently live only in their heads.
It could support safer change by improving understanding, documentation and test coverage
And it could help teams spend less time deciphering legacy code and more time modernising the systems the business already depends on.
That is the real opportunity.
Not AI as a novelty, but AI as a way to reduce operational risk, improve knowledge transfer and give IBM i teams more confidence when working with complex, business-critical applications.
So, the Bob Premium Package for i as the more complete version for real IBM i development work. It adds direct IBM i connectivity, a unified developer workflow, specialised IBM i skills and workflows, fewer tokens, better results, and an integrated user experience.
So, while standard IBM Bob already supports IBM i modernisation tasks, the Bob Premium Package for i is designed to take that further by adding native IBM i connectivity, IBM i-specific modes, curated skills, source member access, compile/test capabilities and guided workflows for real IBM i modernisation activity.
Comparison: IBM Bob vs Bob Premium Package for i
Ok, a briefest of deep-dives this table highlights where the difference really sits:
Standard IBM Bob gives development teams a general AI partner across the software development lifecycle. It can help with understanding, generating, refactoring, documenting and automating development tasks across enterprise software projects.
The Bob Premium Package for i adds a more specific IBM i lens. It is aimed at teams working with code and the live IBM i application environments. That changes the value proposition from general AI assistance to something more closely aligned with the way IBM i teams actually work – on the box itself.
So, the biggest shift is context. With direct IBM i connectivity and IBM i-specific capabilities, Bob can move away from disconnected copy-and-paste usage and closer to real application development.
For organisations running business-critical IBM i systems, this is where the announcement becomes significant.
The goal is not just faster code generation. It is safer change, better documentation, improved knowledge transfer and a more practical route to modernisation without losing the business logic that already works.
Great! But this stuff isn’t free… well, after the free trial anyway.
IBM Bob Premium Package for i Pricing
In terms of costs, the IBM BOB Premium Package for i is positioned above the base plans.
So first, a customer would need to choose the appropriate plan for them. In this, Bob allows you to have a free trial with 40 Bobcoins… I’ll get to those in a minute.
Once they’ve been consumed or a month has elapsed, you have a choice of three tiers.
First, Pro at $20 per month is a continuation of the 40 Bobcoin model, so if you’re an occasional coder, a solo developer or a small shop, this may be the tier for you.
Next is Pro+, this provides 160 Bobcoins and may be the sweet spot for most IBM i shops while Ultra is $200 per user per month and provides 500 Bobcoins, the tier for heavy coding and modernisation.
Now after that, i’d probably recommend that the IBM i shop purchase the Premium Package for i. This is an additional $20 per month but does contain all the nuanced IBM i niceties.
IBM Bob: What are Bobcoins?
So, what are Bobcoins? Bobcoins are essentially usage credits.
Instead of just paying for the tool, you’re paying for the amount of AI work you actually use.
Small tasks cost very little, but bigger jobs like code refactoring or modernisation use more coins. It’s a simple model, but it does mean AI becomes something you actively manage, not just switch on.
So, Bobcoins act as a simplified way to measure AI consumption:
- Small tasks: 0.1–0.5 coins
- Code modernisation: 2–5 coins
- Complex workflows: higher usage
This effectively turns AI into a metered resource, rather than a fixed-cost tool.
Should you choose IBM Bob Premium Package for i?
So, the IBM Bob Premium Package for i is not being positioned as another generic AI coding assistant.
IBM makes it clear that they see a real opportunity in helping IBM i teams understand, document, modernise and safely evolve the systems their businesses already depend on.
So, it’s not just that it can generate code, but that it can work with IBM i-specific context, documentation and system knowledge to produce more relevant answers.
And that matters because hallucination and generic AI output are obvious concerns for anyone working on business-critical systems. IBM are positioning Bob as a colleague you can trust.
IBM Bob won’t remove the need for IBM i expertise
The key point here is that AI is a powerful tool, a trusted colleague even. But it is not the whole story. Used on its own, IBM Bob can generate code, explain logic and speed up repetitive tasks.
But without experienced people managing and guiding the work, there is still a risk of missing what really matters.
The best results come when AI works as part of the team.
Let Bob help with the repetitive work:
- Documentation
- First pass analysis
- Routine development tasks.
Then let the developers and business experts apply the judgment, experience and understanding needed to make the right decisions.
For IBM i, this is not about replacing developers. It is about giving teams better tools so they can modernise with more confidence.
So, in closing, I’d say that it’s important to remember that IBM Bob will not remove the need for IBM i expertise; instead, it’ll amplify it.
Once development becomes metered and scalable, the real question becomes, who’s managing it, controlling it, and making sure it delivers value?
And for IBM, that’s where the real opportunity sits.
But for now, that’s it for this June 2026 Update.
I’m Andrew Nicholson, and we’re Proximity, your application support, maintenance and development partners that are in your corner.
If you missed it, catch up on our May IBM i update, or access all the IBM i Updates in one place.
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