IBM CICS Transaction Server agents for Z are now generally available! 

Announcement by Skyla Loomis, General Manager, Z Software: https://www.ibm.com/new/announcements/empowering-mainframe-users-with-agentic-ai 

The latest IBM watsonx Assistant for Z release contains pre-built agents for z/OS middleware, purposefully designed to enhance productivity and simplify operations across a range of real-world use cases. Here's what it means for CICS Transaction Server users...

IBM CICS Transaction Server agents for Z provide rapid access to expert knowledge and best practice guidance from the CICS development teams, combined with live system data.  They’re designed to significantly reduce the time and effort required to understand unfamiliar CICS concepts, make decisions around configuration or optimisation of your CICS environments, and troubleshoot issues – freeing up valuable time so you can use your skills and expertise where they’re most valuable.

With blogs and video walkthroughs coming to provide detailed examples of the agents in action, here’s a summary of the highlights:

Expert Recommendations at Your Fingertips: Streamline Research and Evaluation

• Actionable guidance and best practices curated by IBM CICS SMEs - going beyond publicly available Documentation, the agents provide recommendations and insights from the experts behind the systems you’re running.
• Faster answers, reduced risk of error, and more confidence in your decisions (especially for new team members, building their expertise).
• Ask questions such as "What are the pros and cons of implementing ...", or "What are the implications of..." or "What are the practical considerations for..."

A Faster Way to Understand Complex Concepts

• Whether you're exploring new methodologies or trying to understand unfamiliar terminology, the agent can support by translating technical jargon into plain language and offering intuitive explanations.
• Ideal for optimising your environment and making changes, or for early tenure systems programmers or new hires to ramp up faster and contribute more effectively.
• As enterprises increasingly work in more hybrid environments, the agents can support cross-team collaboration by providing clear, contextual insights for teams that don’t require deep IBM Z expertise – protecting the time of the CICS SMEs within your organization whilst also providing non-CICS experts with explanations they need.
• Ask questions such as "What are the key features of..." or "What's the significance of..."
  
  

Streamlined Error Resolution

• When faced with an error code, imagine if you no longer needed to work through a list of potential causes to find the right one before you could implement a solution, while the error continues to affect your transaction(s) – but instead, you could ask for help and receive a single, contextual response with recommended actions. This is what our problem determination agent delivers.
• For certain error codes, supply the agent with the error code and relevant transaction ID, and know that the resulting diagnosis and recommended resolution are tailored to your specific environment (see screenshot below).
  
  
  

Retain Full Control of Your Environment

• CICS Transaction Server agents for Z are read-only: they will make no changes on your system.
• They retrieve their live system data through an MCP server embedded into CICS TS 6.3 – to make use of a secure, resilient architecture that is familiar to CICS users.
  
  
  
  

Ready to discover how IBM CICS Transaction Server agents for Z can help you manage your environment? 
Watch this video to learn more about agentic AI in general, and a deeper dive into the MCP server embedded into CICS TS 6.3: AI agent support in CICS TS 6.3

View the CICS TS Documentation: How it works: CICS agents

View the installation guide and details of other IBM Z agents available: IBM Z AI Agents on GitHub
Read this blog post to learn more about ‘behind the scenes’ of our agents and understand how they reach their responses: Demystifying IBM CICS Transaction Server Agents

Read this blog post to learn more about the problem determination agent: Using the Problem Determination Agent with CICS TS

Walkthroughs for using the agents to solve problems will follow shortly in both blog and video form.