The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into enterprise technology is helping transform business operations and drive efficiency, innovation, and competitive advantage. As generative AI evolves, IBM and Oracle are at the forefront, embedding AI into core business processes and integrating it into enterprise applications and cloud infrastructure to drive secure, scalable, and high-impact transformation. The IBM and Oracle partnership enables organizations to harness AI’s full potential. Beyond accelerating AI adoption, this is also helping redefine enterprise intelligence—optimizing operations, enhancing decision-making, and maximizing technology investments. Together, IBM and Oracle are shaping a future where AI is not just an enhancement but a fundamental driver of innovation and competitive success.
Transforming Enterprise AI with Innovation and Business-Centric Solutions
IBM has long been a pioneer in AI, from Watson’s early innovations to today’s enterprise AI solutions. IBM’s AI strategy rests on two pillars: IBM Software, which provides security-focused and transparent enterprise AI, cloud, security, and automation solutions, and IBM Consulting, which drives large-scale business transformation, technology implementation, and managed services, leveraging IBM and ecosystem partner technologies. In fact, IBM is one of few major technology companies with a global consulting business at scale, which is a key differentiator when it comes to helping clients deploy AI. IBM’s AI book of business has grown to over $5 billion across software and consulting, with 80% of bookings coming from IBM Consulting.
Oracle’s AI strategy is built on over 40 years of enterprise technology and applications expertise, seamlessly integrating AI into both data platforms and business processes —Jody Clayton Group Vice President, Advanced Technology- SaaS Technology, Analytics, AI & Emerging Technology at Oracle
Oracle also has a long history with AI and innovative technologies, embedding AI directly into Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, offering a robust, scalable AI solution with tight control over data security and governance. With over 100 generative AI-driven capabilities already live and 50 ready-made AI agents across the suite, Oracle enables business users to change the way work gets done with AI through enhanced decision-making, workflow automation, and improved productivity. As Jody Clayton, group vice president, Advanced Technology – SaaS Technology, Analytics, AI & Emerging Technology at Oracle, emphasizes, “Oracle’s AI strategy is built on over 40 years of enterprise technology and applications expertise, seamlessly integrating AI into both data platforms and business processes. Our cloud infrastructure is engineered for performance and cost efficiency, making it the preferred choice for running AI workloads. By having a complete infrastructure, data, and application cloud platform, Oracle is able to drive AI services and embedded intelligence across the enterprise, helping improve the efficiency of all employees.”
Oracle’s AI strategy is anchored in three critical components. First is high-quality, context-rich data, which is essential for AI success, and Oracle’s data platforms provide a solid foundation for AI-driven automation. Second is a cost-efficient AI infrastructure, as Oracle’s cloud infrastructure is optimized for AI workloads, which can help reduce training and deployment costs while helping to enhance processing power. And third is deep connectivity across critical business processes, as Oracle integrates AI across key business functions, including finance, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. Rod Johnson, executive vice president, cloud applications, Oracle, says, “A prime example of Oracle’s AI-driven transformation is its own financial operations. With Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Oracle has achieved a record-fast financial close cycle, consistently reporting earnings in under ten days. In addition, Oracle has saved approximately 80,000 hours annually through AI-enhanced forecasting and budgeting. For businesses, these capabilities translate to tangible improvements, such as increased accuracy in demand planning, enhanced decision-making, and greater operational efficiency.”1
“The synergy between IBM and Oracle extends beyond automation into AI model integration. Oracle customers can leverage IBM’s watsonx AI models within Oracle Cloud applications, combining IBM’s granite models with Oracle’s AI stack and cohere models.” —Shobhit Varshney, VP & Sr. Partner, Americas AI Leader at IBM
Oracle’s AI solutions offer customers the opportunity for significant productivity gains and operational efficiencies. Whether optimizing finance, HR, or supply chain operations, AI in Oracle Fusion Applications is intentionally embedded into business processes to help deliver real-world impact, optimize workflows, and maximize revenue potential.
Co-owning Enterprise Transformations
Collaboration is at the heart of IBM Consulting’s strategy, with a strong focus on collaborating with industry leaders like Oracle to deliver AI-powered solutions that can help drive measurable business outcomes. With an open ecosystem approach, IBM Consulting meets clients where they are, leveraging AI models from IBM, Oracle, and other business partners to enhance business processes and bring together the strengths of both companies to help deliver optimized enterprise solutions.
With a legacy of AI leadership, IBM embeds generative AI capabilities into its implementation methodologies and platforms to help customers with Oracle deployments. A key enabler of this strategy is IBM Consulting Advantage, an AI-powered delivery platform that equips consultants with generative AI agents, assistants, and applications to augment their work supporting clients. IBM Consulting Advantage leverages IBM and business partner technologies and provides predefined frameworks, industry templates, business process flows, and intelligent workflows that streamline implementation and reduce manual effort through automation. Chacko Thomas, Americas Oracle Leader, IBM, highlights, “Oracle customers get out-of-the-box AI-powered SaaS, but as implementers, that is just our starting point. At IBM, we aim to enhance the entire implementation lifecycle by helping clients boost their productivity from design to testing. With IBM Consulting Advantage agents, assistants, and applications, our consultants are leveraging AI-powered tools to streamline processes and reduce manual effort, like generating test scripts. It is about delivering the best of Oracle Fusion Applications for clients while optimizing implementation with IBM’s productivity tools.”
IBM Consulting’s deep industry expertise helps organizations align AI adoption with their sector-specific challenges, helping clients navigate Oracle’s existing AI capabilities and identify where custom AI solutions are required. IBM’s acquisitions of Accelalpha and Applications Software Technology LLC have expanded its Oracle consulting expertise across industries such as supply chain and logistics, finance, and the public sector to support clients in their digital transformations with Oracle Fusion Applications. By enhancing Oracle Fusion Applications with industry-specific expertise, frameworks, and additional AI solutions, IBM Consulting enables Oracle customers to maximize efficiency and innovation while reducing time-to-value.
Additionally, with multi-cloud flexibility—including Red Hat OpenShift, certified on Oracle Cloud—IBM helps organizations deploy AI-driven automation across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, enabling scalability and adaptability. As Shobhit Varshney, VP & Sr. Partner, Americas AI Leader, IBM, emphasizes, “The synergy between IBM and Oracle extends beyond automation into AI model integration. Oracle customers can leverage IBM watsonx AI models within Oracle Fusion Applications, combining IBM Granite models with Oracle’s AI stack. IBM watsonx Orchestrate further enhances this ecosystem, enabling digital labor coordination across platforms so that organizations can tailor AI-powered automation to their unique business needs.”
Starting the Transformation Journey
For many organizations, the biggest challenge with AI-driven automation is knowing where to start. Oracle makes this easier with hundreds of built-in AI capabilities in Oracle Fusion Applications, many of which can be activated with minimal effort. IBM further simplifies the process by helping customers optimize these AI-driven capabilities, accelerating adoption and immediate value realization.
“Oracle customers get out-of-the-box AI-powered SaaS, but as implementers, that is just our starting point. At IBM, we enhance the entire implementation lifecycle—boosting productivity from design to testing.” —Chacko Thomas, IBM’s Americas Oracle Leader
Oracle has long been at the forefront of business process automation, with over 100 generative AI and machine learning capabilities embedded in its applications. Now, the company is advancing further with the release of new AI agents and its AI Agent Studio for Oracle Fusion Applications, which combines large language models (LLMs) with other technologies to accomplish complex tasks that previously could only be done by humans. This shift represents a major transformation in automation, moving beyond rigid, rule-based workflows to intelligent decision-making. By embedding AI-driven workflows within its enterprise applications, Oracle enables organizations to streamline operations while maintaining tight control over data governance and security. IBM provides consulting services and solutions to help clients implement and derive greater value from Oracle Fusion Applications, leveraging IBM Consulting Advantage to accelerate AI transformation.
Conclusion
As AI adoption accelerates, enterprises seek solutions that integrate intelligence while providing security, scalability, and efficiency. IBM and Oracle offer distinct yet complementary AI capabilities to help drive business transformation. IBM specializes in AI consulting and secure, enterprise-specific AI models designed for transparency and control. Meanwhile, Oracle embeds AI directly into all layers of the technology stack, helping enhance automation, decision-making, and operational performance.
Together, they create a robust AI-enabled enterprise ecosystem, combining Oracle’s built-in AI with IBM Consulting services to drive business transformation, technology implementation, and managed services . This synergy enables organizations to harness AI confidently, helping to drive efficiency, agility, and competitiveness in an increasingly intelligent business landscape.
References
1 https://www.oracle.com/playbook/financial-excellence/
