Armand Ruiz, VP of AI Platform at IBM detailed how Big Blue is thinking about generative AI and how its enterprise users are actually deploying the technology. A key theme that Ruiz emphasized is that at this point, it’s not about choosing a single LLM provider or technology. Increasingly, enterprise customers are systematically rejecting single-vendor AI strategies in favor of multi-model approaches that match specific LLMs to targeted use cases. IBM has its own open-source AI models with the Granite family, but it is not positioning that technology as the only choice, or even the right choice for all workloads. This enterprise behavior is driving IBM to position itself not as a foundation model competitor, but as what Ruiz referred to as a control tower for AI workloads. IBM’s response to this market reality is a newly released model gateway that provides enterprises with a single API to switch between different LLMs while maintaining observability and governance across all deployments. The technical architecture allows customers to run open-source models on their own inference stack for sensitive use cases while simultaneously accessing public APIs like AWS Bedrock or Google Cloud’s Gemini for less critical applications. “That gateway is providing our customers a single layer with a single API to switch from one LLM to another LLM and add observability and governance all throughout,” Ruiz said. The company has developed ACP (Agent Communication Protocol) and contributed it to the Linux Foundation. ACP is a competitive effort to Google’s Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol which was contributed by Google to the Linux Foundation. The agent orchestration protocols provide standardized ways for AI systems to interact across different platforms and vendors. IBM’s real-world deployment data suggests several critical shifts for enterprise AI strategy: Abandon chatbot-first thinking: Organizations should identify complete workflows for transformation rather than adding conversational interfaces to existing systems. The goal is to eliminate human steps, not improve human-computer interaction. Architect for multi-model flexibility: Rather than committing to single AI providers, enterprises need integration platforms that enable switching between models based on use case requirements while maintaining governance standards. Invest in communication standards: Organizations should prioritize AI tools that support emerging protocols like MCP, ACP, and A2A rather than proprietary integration approaches that create vendor lock-in.