For Dinesh Nirmal, the head of IBM Software, a key directive is to integrate generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into all IBM products and use it to boost developer productivity across global labs.
Nirmal sees automation as one of the greatest advantages of GenAI, leading to significant optimizations and productivity improvements. He reports that IBM Software has observed productivity increases of 30-40 percent in certain software development areas.
“Software development encompasses more than just code generation. In areas such as code documentation, explanation, or generating test cases, we’re seeing 30-40 percent optimization and productivity gains,” he shared during a virtual meeting with Business Standard.
Nirmal emphasizes that IBM Software Labs is embedding GenAI into every product in IBM’s portfolio, enhancing developers’ coding capabilities.
“Developers can now produce hundreds and thousands of lines of code that were previously unattainable. It’s a tool to augment developer productivity, enabling quicker code delivery and application development. For me, it’s about boosting productivity and augmenting human capabilities rather than replacing them,” he said, addressing concerns about GenAI potentially replacing developers.
IBM Software Labs in India are situated in Ahmedabad, Kochi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune. Nirmal explains how GenAI is being integrated into IBM’s Indian labs. “Our Kochi Labs focuses on automation products like watsonx Orchestrate, while Ahmedabad focuses on integrating GenAI into our security products,” he noted.
He also mentions that a high percentage of developers at IBM’s Software India labs are proficient in GenAI. “That’s why we’ve assigned many core missions to India.”
Despite the excitement around GenAI, Nirmal points out that its actual adoption and deployment have been limited.
“When discussing GenAI adoption — not just proof of concepts but actual deployment in production environments — less than 10 percent of enterprises have fully embraced it,” he stated.
The reason for this, according to Nirmal, is that enterprises have other priorities that take precedence over adopting GenAI for end-user applications like ChatGPT.
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