Big Blue says its sleeper AI tool 'Bob' boosted dev productivity 45%

IBM has quietly pushed its homegrown vibe coding tool “Bob” out to the public after moving its entire developer team to the platform.

The AI software development lifecycle (SDLC) tool helps developers augment their coding work with AI models. IBM is pushing the tool, a fork of VS Code, as a more secure, on-prem version of Codex or Claude Code that lives inside the IDE.

Internal adoption of Bob has boosted developer productivity by 45% CEO Arvind Krishna told investors during IBM's Q1 2026 earnings call on Wednesday.

Bob was first previewed in October 2025 and made generally available in late March. However, only 200 people have signed up for the tool, after IBM “chose not to announce it.”