One month ago, TechXchange 2025 was in full swing. Set in warm and sunny (and occasionally rainy) Orlando, this was a buzzing technical conference covering the breadth of IBM’s software portfolio with Keynotes, breakout sessions, Hands-on Labs, 1-1 meetings, and a busy expo floor.

There was strong presence from the IBM Cloud Pak for Integration team with sessions and labs starting on the Community Day on Monday through to the last breakout session on Thursday (focused on innovations in Cloud Pak for Integration) just before the conference ended. I especially enjoyed session 2527 “Navigating beyond Cloud Paks” which was a session led by Tapestry (the fashion company owning the brands Coach New York, and Kate Spade New York), who gave their customer story of successfully adopting Cloud Pak for Integration and the various changes they have been able to make through their experience.

Through the week there were a number of Labs as well as technical workshops focused on Cloud Pak for Integration. And of course, many 1-1 customer meetings with our experts to discuss Cloud Pak for Integration, both from the perspective of existing customers wanting updates, to new or potential customers looking to understand how to make their first steps.

What were some of the highlights and memorable moments for me?

·      Positive energy

o   There was a tremendous buzz from everyone at the event – customers, partners and IBM attendees. All the sessions I attended had fantastic engagement with so many insightful questions to the speakers.

·      AI focus

o   Perhaps unsurprising but it’s not just hype. Customers are very keen to find how they can take advantage of AI to enhance their business, and their offerings to their own customers and users.

·      Focus on doing things right

o   We sometimes hear about getting stuff done quickly, or learning from mistakes, but a lot of customer discussions were about understanding and then doing. Making sure they got advice about the best approach, especially given that integration deployments are business-critical and are at the heart of every business

All of these were in the context of discussions about deploying and using Cloud Pak for Integration. All the customers we talked with were either already using Cloud Pak for Integration on Red Hat OpenShift, or were preparing to do so. So, what were some of the thoughts, questions, and areas of discussion?

·      A number of customer discussions were with customers either starting to plan to move their existing integrations into Cloud Pak for Integration on OpenShift, or with those in the early stages of doing so.

o   These discussions were mostly to provide guidance and insight about the right architectural approach for deployment. Every business is different and therefore it is good for IBM to provide its knowledge from the hundreds of successful deployed customers to help guide new customers modernizing.

o   Customers might have different priorities or requirements which can adjust the suggested approach. If your business would like this type of review and discussion, please get in touch.

o   The one consistent message we hear from our customers is that these integrations will be critical to their business. They will be handling critical business data, and the workload will be essential to the success of the business and their customer interactions. IBM Cloud Pak for Integration is built with this need in mind. With decades of proven experience in world-leading integration offerings, every part of the Cloud Pak for Integration product reflects our customers’ requirement for resilience, security and availability.

·      Other customer discussions were with those who had already deployed Cloud Pak for Integration and wanted to hear information about the latest innovations, or to provide feedback and future requirements for our consideration.

o   We capture and review all feedback and customer suggestions which helps to guide our future priorities. 

·      In all the discussions, we were excited to bring up and demonstrate our new AI Agents. As well as Agents for Cloud Pak for Integration we were talking about the new Agents for IBM MQ and IBM App Connect as well

o   These are currently in tech preview and are free to download and try out.

o   You can register for the CP4I Agent tech preview here.

o   You can register for the MQ Agent tech preview here.

o   You can register for the ACE Agent tech preview here.

As well as 1-1 discussions in the ‘Sandbox’ meeting area, we had numerous conversations at the expo booth, and in sessions where we were able to provide some new information and have enjoyable open discussions. One of the best parts of our job as a Product Manager is customer contact. I will say that even though IBM TechXchange was wonderful, don’t feel that you need to wait for next year (in Atlanta) to get in touch. Please reach out to me or any IBM colleague and we can get a discussion going, either online, virtually or in person.

We want you to be the next customer achieving new levels of automation, efficiency and productive integration with Cloud Pak for Integration.

As for next steps, other than clicking on the Agents links above, you can also see the Agents being demoed in this webinar.

And separately if you want to see Cloud Pak for Integration in action we can set up a live demo here.