---
name: watson-assistant-welcome-new-assistant
title: Welcome to watsonx Assistant
description: Welcome to the documentation for watsonx Assistant!
last-updated: 2025-01-21
---

> ## Documentation Index
> The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/watson-assistant?format=markdown
> The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use these files to discover more information as needed.

# Welcome to watsonx Assistant
{: #welcome-new-assistant}

Welcome to the documentation for watsonx Assistant!
{: shortdesc}

IBM® watsonx™ Assistant, focused on using **actions** to build customer conversations, is designed to make it simple enough for *anyone* to build a virtual assistant. Building, testing, publishing, and analyzing your assistant can all now be done in one simple and intuitive interface.

- New **navigation** provides a workflow for building, previewing, publishing, and analyzing your assistant. 

- Each assistant has a **home page** with a task list to help you get started.

- Build conversations with **actions**, which represent the tasks you want your assistant to help your customers with. Each action contains a series of steps that represent individual exchanges with a customer.

- A new way to **publish** lets you review and debug your work in a draft environment before going live to your customers.

- Use a new suite of **analytics** to improve your assistant. Review which actions are being completed to see what your customers want help with, determine if your assistant understands and addresses customer needs, and decide how can you make your assistant better.

- Explore our [interactive demo site](https://www.ibm.com/products/watson-assistant/demos/lendyr/demo.html){: external} to learn how watsonx Assistant can be used to build powerful, scalable experiences for your users.

For more information, see [FAQs about watsonx Assistant](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/watson-assistant?topic=watson-assistant-watson-assistant-faqs&format=markdown#faqs-new-experience).

Visit [Getting started with watsonx Assistant](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/watson-assistant?topic=watson-assistant-getting-started&format=markdown) for a tutorial series on building in watsonx Assistant.

## Switching between watsonx Assistant and the classic experience
{: #welcome-new-assistant-switch-experience}

You can easily switch back and forth between watsonx Assistant and the classic experience. However, watsonx Assistant provides a simplified user interface, an improved deployment process, and access to the latest features. For more information, see [Migrating to watsonx Assistant](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/watson-assistant?topic=watson-assistant-migrate-overview&format=markdown). If you do need to switch, see [Switching between watsonx Assistant and the classic experience](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/watson-assistant?topic=watson-assistant-switch-experience&format=markdown).

## Using watsonx Assistant
{: #welcome-new-assistant-using}

IBM® watsonx™ Assistant can be deployed as a managed cloud service or can be installed on premises. This documentation applies to a managed service on IBM Cloud or installed on IBM Cloud Pak for Data, and describes how to use the product regardless of how it is deployed. Information that applies exclusively to one deployment type is denoted by the appropriate tag:

- [IBM Cloud]{: tag-ibm-cloud} for managed instances
- [IBM Cloud Pak for Data]{: tag-cp4d} version 4.6 or later for installed instances