IBM also announced in April that over the next five years, it would invest $150 billion in the United States [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

IBM on Tuesday made a play for more sales in the crowded artificial intelligence field, touting tools that could help customers manage a fleet of AI agents for their key business applications.

In an interview, Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said he saw an opening to provide software that integrates customers’ AI agents from other providers — among them Salesforce, Workday and Adobe — and lets them build their own agents for untapped use cases, with IBM’s help.

“We help our clients integrate. We want to meet them where they are,” he said, ahead of IBM’s annual Think conference sessions on Tuesday.

IBM’s tools to help customers create their own agents, a process it said would take under five minutes, draw on the IBM Granite family of AI models, as well as alternatives from Meta Platforms and Mistral, Krishna said.

Krishna said that customer interest in using different AI models for different tasks would build demand for IBM, which last month reported that it has built a $6 billion “book of business” on ChatGPT-like generative AI. A small cloud provider relative to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, IBM has tailored its tech to clients wanting multiple clouds or their own infrastructure to manage their data.

“All of these capabilities will only accelerate that rate of growth on those numbers,” he said of IBM’s new tools.

IBM also announced in April that over the next five years, it would invest $150 billion in the United States, where it has manufactured mainframe computers for more than 60 years. It will make quantum computers in the United States as well, Krishna said.

“Between mainframe, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, we think there’s going to be a very healthy market that behooves us to invest and lean in,” he said.

Krishna added that the technology focus and reduction in regulations from President Donald Trump’s administration would set the economy up for growth.

Representative image
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

India’s service sector activity grew marginally in April as compared to the previous month, according to a survey of private sector companies. The improved activity was driven by a surge in new orders, notably from the U.S., and an easing of cost pressures.

The HSBC India Services PMI Business Activity Index, calculated based on a single question of how the level of business activity compares with the situation the month before, came in at 58.7 in April, up from 58.5 in March. This, HSBC India said in its report, continued to remain higher than India’s long-term average of 54.2.

“The overall expansion in output was fuelled by a significant rise in new business intakes, the joint-best in eight months, with many firms noting favourable demand conditions and successful marketing efforts,” the report said. “In some instances, efficiency gains reportedly enabled companies to take on more work.”

Orders placed with Indian companies originated in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and with the US “particularly cited as sources of strength”.

“New export orders gained momentum after taking a breather in March, accelerating at its fastest pace since July 2024,” Pranjul Bhandari, Chief India Economist at HSBC said in the report. “Margins improved as cost pressures eased and prices charged rose at a faster pace.”

Notably, the strong export demand for Indian services comes on the back of a similar trend for India’s manufacturing sector in April. According to HSBC’s India Manufacturing PMI, released on May 2, new business from abroad in April for the manufacturing sector grew at its second-fastest rate in over 14 years.

However, Ms Bhandari added that, while Indian services firms remained optimistic about future growth, their confidence “waned slightly”.