Future mainframe transformation will be built on artificial intelligence (AI). BMC has been preparing for this AI revolution for some time now: In July 2024, BMC mainframe Senior Vice President and General Manager John McKenny set forth a statement of direction for the BMC AMI Platform, bringing together AI, generative AI (GenAI), and cloud-based tooling to create a unified access point for all BMC AMI solutions. In October, we introduced BMC AMI Assistant, which leverages GenAI within BMC AMI solutions to bridge workforce knowledge gaps and facilitate data-driven decision making.
For example, within BMC AMI Code Insights, BMC AMI Assistant provides developers with quick, clear explanations of complex code. With a simple right-click, developers can see explanations of unfamiliar COBOL, PL/I, JCL, and Assembler code, then copy these explanations as code comments. This code explanation accelerates onboarding, reduces time spent on code analysis, and helps less-experienced team members confidently understand and update critical applications.
BMC AMI Assistant also enhances root cause analysis from BMC AMI Ops Insight with natural-language explanations, and recommended next steps, guiding systems programmers and IT operations teams through issue resolution, helping to shorten incident response times and reduce downtime, while helping operations teams resolve issues faster—directly impacting service quality and operational efficiency.
In April 2025, we introduced a curated LLM library and bring-your-own-LLM (BYOLLM), empowering organizations to seamlessly integrate multiple AI models to tailor BMC AMI Assistant output to their specific use cases, policies, and security requirements. This gives organizations flexibility and control over how they deploy AI, ensuring that outputs are aligned with internal standards, regulatory requirements, and unique business priorities.
Hardware designed for AI
Given our dedication to simplifying mainframe management with AI, we are excited by the possibilities the new IBM® z17™ brings. Announced in April and generally available on June 18, the IBM z17 was designed with AI in mind, with the new IBM Telum® II processor, featuring an on-chip AI accelerator, and the coming IBM Spyre™ Accelerator, expected to be released later this year, which will further GenAI capabilities on the mainframe.
As with every new release on the IBM Z® platform, BMC is committed to ensuring full support of the IBM z17 throughout the BMC AMI portfolio. Whether you’re currently utilizing AI on the platform or planning to do so in the future, you can confidently transition to and take advantage of this new hardware with minimal disruption.
Faster, more powerful mainframe AI
One especially exciting aspect of the new IBM z17 is the upcoming Spyre Accelerator, a PCIe-attached card designed to provide increased compute power and efficiency to handle large-scale AI workloads and enable on-platform large language model (LLM) support. This complements BMC’s current and future GenAI capabilities in a number of ways.
This increased power will enable BMC AMI Ops Insight to gain greater insight into system workloads and potential issues while empowering BMC AMI Assistant to provide even more robust, accurate, and specific GenAI guidance. This power and scalability will also help accelerate our expansion of BMC AMI Ops Insight and the integration of AI/ML guidance into the rest of the BMC AMI portfolio.
The Spyre Accelerator also gives even more power to BMC’s hybrid AI and BYOLLM design approach. The accelerator’s increased compute power enables GenAI workloads directly on the mainframe, giving organizations the ability to leverage the LLMs or small language models (SLMs) of their choosing. With this approach, GenAI applications like BMC AMI Assistant can provide honed, adaptable answers specific to the organization’s systems and policies.
You’ve never mainframed like this
With enhancements to processing power and efficiency specifically geared toward AI on the mainframe, the IBM z17 complements BMC’s ongoing strategy to provide a strategic AI partner for mainframe transformation. While the IBM z17 is architected for the AI revolution, our BMC AMI solutions are already architected to exploit the AI capabilities of the IBM z17, with full support that enables you to take advantage of these advancements immediately.
As new mainframe AI workloads emerge and are brought to scale, BMC is ready. With the BMC AMI portfolio, so are you.
