IBM and OpenAI are joining forces in the enterprise customer business: The consulting firm is integrating the language models GPT-5.6, the programming assistant Codex, and the agent ChatGPT Work into its platform IBM Consulting Advantage starting now. Tens of thousands of consultants are to be trained for this in the coming months, especially for clients from financial services, government, and telecommunications.
IBM reaches the highest partner level of OpenAI
Both companies announced the expanded collaboration on August 13, 2026. It builds on an existing partnership that began in June 2026 with the cybersecurity program OpenAI Daybreak. With the new agreement, IBM is moving up to the highest partner category of OpenAI, the so-called Elite Status, according to its own statement. Andy Baldwin, global Senior Vice President for consulting at IBM, cites a change in the challenge as the reason: Access to AI technologies is no longer the problem, but their secure integration on a large scale. OpenAI’s Chief Sales Officer Denise Dresser expresses a similar sentiment: Companies that advance with AI make it a reliable part of their business processes. Both sides did not disclose financial details of the agreement, such as contract value or duration. CEO Arvind Krishna admitted in a letter to investors in July 2026 that IBM had not reacted quickly enough to several large AI contract closures, contributing to the recent decline in revenue. The new partnership can thus also be seen as an attempt to catch up in the consulting business with AI projects.
Consulting platform integrates three OpenAI tools
IBM Consulting Advantage gains access to GPT-5.6 for general analysis and text tasks, Codex for software development, and the independently operating agent ChatGPT Work for multi-stage project work through the deal. According to the announcement, the focus is on the sectors of financial services, public sector, telecommunications, and retail, as well as the functional areas of finance, procurement, customer service, and human resources. To implement this for clients, IBM is establishing its own OpenAI Practice: specialized teams whose members undergo certification through the OpenAI Partner Network and work directly on client projects, similar to the already existing Daybreak security teams. IBM itself states in its announcement that thousands of consultants will be trained accordingly. According to reports from TechCrunch, it is expected that tens of thousands will be trained over several months, mostly existing employees rather than new hires. This higher number is independently unverified. Neither IBM nor OpenAI provided a fixed date from which clients can fully utilize the new services. Both companies also did not comment on availability in Germany or the EU. IBM Consulting is active here as well, but a regional start date for the partnership is still missing.
Security service Autonomous Security integrates Daybreak technology
A separate part of the agreement concerns cybersecurity: IBM is expanding the existing collaboration under OpenAI Daybreak and will also integrate the technology there into its own security service Autonomous Security, which uses multiple AI agents. The goal is to detect vulnerabilities in customer systems more quickly and trace attack paths, including in supply chains. This expands a field in which OpenAI already supplies selected security teams and authorities with Daybreak. The new agreement links this cybersecurity offering directly with the broader consulting platform IBM Consulting Advantage for the first time, rather than marketing it separately. For clients in regulated industries, this is said by IBM to lower the barrier to introducing AI systems without incurring additional security risks.
It remains to be seen whether the restructuring will pay off for IBM in the short term: The company recently lowered its revenue forecast for 2026 and describes AI consulting as a long-term growth driver at the same time. Whether the announced tens of thousands of training sessions will actually take place to this extent and how many client projects will arise from this by the end of the year can only be seen in the next quarterly figures.
