IBM Bob 2.0 review: what actually changed for IBM i shops

IBM shipped Bob 2.0 on July 9. IT Jungle confirmed the IBM i specifics four days later, on July 13. If you read our review of the Premium Package for i back in June, the question is simple: does this change anything you decided then? Mostly no. The engine got an upgrade. The IBM i-specific package sitting on top of it didn’t.

Here’s what actually shipped, what’s still the same, and what to do about it this week.

What Bob 2.0 shipped on July 9

IBM’s announcement bundles three things together: a new architecture for Bob itself, an enterprise analytics feature called Bobalytics, and three new Premium Packages, for Java modernization, IBM i, and, for the first time, IBM Z. The IBM i package isn’t new. It’s the same one that shipped June 24 and that we reviewed at a 4.0. What’s new is the platform it now runs on.

The architecture change is the real story if you care about how the tool performs day to day. Bob 2.0 introduces a unified harness, meaning the VS Code extension and the CLI shell now share one execution engine instead of running as two separately maintained code paths. On top of that, IBM added native tool calling with parallel execution, so the model can request several tools in a single turn and run them together instead of one at a time. Subagents handle isolated pieces of work in their own context and return only the relevant result, which should cut down on both latency and token spend for anything that touches a lot of files or objects. Long-running work can now continue in the background instead of blocking you mid-task. IBM also folded five modes down to three: Agent, Plan, and Ask.

None of that is IBM i-specific. It’s the foundation every Premium Package runs on, i included.

What IT Jungle confirmed for IBM i

IT Jungle’s July 13 piece is the closest thing to independent trade coverage this release has gotten, and it fills in details IBM’s own announcement leaves generic. The Premium Package for i ships roughly 40 skills and workflows and about 30 specialized tools: reading and writing QSYS and IFS objects, running CL commands and SQL statements, launching 5250 sessions, managing library lists. A Developer Mode gives Bob a persona built around RPG, COBOL, DDS, SQL, and CL specifically, rather than treating IBM i as a generic language target.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Those are the same capabilities our June review covered: Native Connection to read and write directly against QSYS and the IFS, RPG modernization from fixed-form to free-form, DDS-to-DDL conversion, business-rule extraction and documentation, and an IBM i-grounded knowledge base. It’s the same native-connection approach we compared to VS Code with the Code for IBM i extension in our RDi coverage. Bob 2.0 didn’t replace or expand that list. It’s the same package, running on faster rails.

What actually changed versus what didn’t

Split it cleanly:

Changed: the underlying platform. Faster multi-step execution through parallel tool calls and subagents, a single execution engine instead of two, simplified mode selection, and Bobalytics as a new enterprise cost and usage dashboard.

Unchanged: the Premium Package for i’s feature list, the Native Connection to QSYS and the IFS, the RPG and DDS conversion workflows, and the pricing. IBM’s own product page still lists the individual plan at USD 40.00 per authorized user per month on top of base Bob, the same number posted since the June release. Enterprise pricing is still quote-based through an IBM rep.

Base Bob pricing itself hasn’t moved: Pro at $20 per user per month plus a $3 support fee with 40 included Bobcoins, Pro Plus at $60 per month plus $9 support with 160 Bobcoins, Ultra at $200 per month plus $30 support with 500 Bobcoins, and additional Bobcoins at $0.50 each on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Bobalytics: useful, but not for everyone

Bobalytics is worth a separate mention because it’s the one genuinely new capability that isn’t just a performance upgrade. It’s an enterprise-tier dashboard that shows usage, cost, quality, and adoption trends across a team, aimed at engineering leaders who need to justify or control AI spend at scale. If you’re running a five-person RPG shop with one or two Bob seats, this doesn’t do anything for you. If you’re the IT manager rolling Bob out across thirty developers and your CFO wants a monthly number, it’s the feature that makes that conversation possible.

IBM also expanded regional deployment options to Japan and Europe, which matters for data residency but has no bearing on a US-based IBM i shop’s decision.

Does this change the June verdict

Our original review said: install the free trial now if you write RPG or DB2 for i, because the Native Connection is a real improvement, and hold off on paying until IBM publishes a real price and other shops report back on output quality. Bob 2.0 doesn’t move either half of that.

The trial is still worth installing, and now arguably more worth installing, since the platform underneath it should handle multi-step modernization tasks faster thanks to subagents and parallel tool calls. Pricing is settled: the individual-plan add-on has held at $40 per authorized user per month since June, so budgeting hasn’t gotten any harder, even though base Bob plus the Pack is still a real monthly line item to justify. The open question from June, whether the generated RPG-to-SQL conversions and business-rule extraction hold up in production, is still open. Two days of trade press coverage isn’t enough to answer it. Treat this the same way we treated the original release: a first read, not a settled judgment.

What to do this week

If you already have the Premium Package for i trial installed from June, you don’t need to do anything. The architecture upgrade applies to your existing setup. Try a multi-step task you avoided before, like extracting business rules from a program with a handful of external call dependencies, and see if the subagent-based execution actually feels faster.

If you haven’t tried it yet, this is a fine week to start. The core reason to try it hasn’t changed: the Native Connection means Bob works directly against QSYS and the IFS instead of forcing you to pull source down to a PC first. That was true in June and it’s still true now. What hasn’t changed either is the advice to hold a paid commitment until IBM puts a real number on the Premium Package and more than one week of trade press exists to judge output quality against.

For a broader look at where AI actually fits into IBM i modernization work, and where it doesn’t, see our Premium Package for i review from June, or the IBM i AI Field Guide if you’re building a longer-term modernization plan instead of chasing every release as it lands.

Frequently asked questions

Is IBM Bob 2.0 the same thing as the Premium Package for i?

No. Bob 2.0 is the underlying platform release from July 9, 2026, covering the shared agent architecture, subagents, and Bobalytics. The Premium Package for i is the IBM i-specific add-on that originally shipped June 24, 2026, and runs on top of whatever Bob version you have. IT Jungle covered both together on July 13 because they landed in the same wave, but they are separate things.

Do I need to reinstall or reconfigure anything to get Bob 2.0?

Based on IBM’s announcement, the architecture change is a platform-side upgrade to the shared harness behind the VS Code extension and the CLI, not a new install you opt into separately. If you already have Bob installed with an active subscription, the unified harness, subagents, and parallel tool calls apply to your existing setup.

Does Bob 2.0 change the price of the Premium Package for i?

No. IBM’s own pricing page still lists the Premium Package for i individual plan at $40 per authorized user per month on top of base Bob, unchanged since the June release. Enterprise pricing remains quote-based through an IBM rep.

What is Bobalytics and do IBM i shops need it?

Bobalytics is a new enterprise-tier analytics dashboard showing usage, cost, and adoption trends across a team. It matters for an engineering leader managing dozens of developers and trying to control AI spend. A small IBM i shop running Bob on a handful of RPG developers has little use for it.