e&, a global technology group, and IBM have announced a strategic collaboration to deploy an enterprise-grade agentic AI foundation, beginning with policy, risk, and compliance functions. Unveiled at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the initiative moves beyond traditional NLP-based chatbots to deliver governed, action-oriented AI agents integrated into core enterprise systems.
Quick Intel
e& and IBM are advancing agentic AI adoption with a solution that embeds intelligent, action-capable agents directly into governance, risk, and compliance workflows. The collaboration focuses on delivering trusted, explainable AI that supports faster decision-making and consistent policy application while maintaining rigorous enterprise controls.
From Chat to Action-Oriented AI Traditional AI tools in compliance often limit interactions to question-and-answer formats. The new agentic solution, powered by IBM watsonx Orchestrate, enables agents to reason over complex information, orchestrate tasks across systems, and execute actions while adhering to governance requirements. Integrated with IBM OpenPages, it provides auditors and employees with rapid, verifiable insights into regulatory and policy data, reducing response times and enabling 24/7 self-service access.
Proof of Concept Success IBM's Client Engineering team, supported by GBM, designed and delivered a proof of concept in just eight weeks. The demonstration validated the solution's ability to operate at enterprise scale under real conditions, showcasing secure reasoning, traceable outputs, and seamless integration with existing watsonx Assistant and OpenPages environments.
Leadership Perspectives "Our ambition is to move beyond isolated AI use cases toward enterprise-scale agentic AI that is trusted, governed, and deeply integrated into how the organization operates," said Hatem Dowidar, Group CEO, e&. "By collaborating with IBM, we are embedding intelligence directly into our risk and compliance processes, enabling faster decisions, consistent policy interpretation, and a foundation for broader agentic AI adoption across the enterprise."
"As organizations move from experimenting with AI to embedding it into the fabric of how they operate, governance and accountability become just as important as intelligence," said Ana Paula Assis, SVP and Chair for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific, IBM. "Through our collaboration with e&, this proof of concept intends to demonstrate how agentic AI can be designed and validated for enterprise-scale use, deeply integrated into core systems, governed by design, and trusted to support human-led decisions and outcomes."
Foundation for Scalable, Responsible AI The solution leverages IBM's model gateway approach, allowing large language models to operate across hybrid environments—including customer-managed infrastructure—while enforcing enterprise governance. Built on watsonx.governance, it ensures explainability, risk management, and compliance by design. This positions e& to extend agentic AI capabilities across additional domains with confidence in security, traceability, and regulatory alignment.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.
About e&
e& is a global technology group committed to advancing the digital future across markets in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe. With the group's financial performance in 2024 showing a consolidated revenue of AED 59.2 billion and a net profit of AED 10.8 billion, e& continues to maintain its position as a financial powerhouse, reflected by its strong credit rating and solid balance sheet. Founded in Abu Dhabi over 48 years ago, e& has evolved from a telecom pioneer into a technology group. Its footprint now spans 38 countries, offering a comprehensive portfolio of innovative digital services ranging from advanced connectivity, entertainment, streaming and financial services to AI-powered solutions, cloud computing, ICT, cybersecurity and IoT platforms.
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