Upgrading to agents with an in-place upgrade

Use this guide to understand how an eligible watsonx Assistant instance is upgraded to watsonx Orchestrate. The upgrade adds the agent-building capabilities of watsonx Orchestrate to your existing instance. Your conversational AI assets, including assistants, dialog flows, and actions, remain in place and continue to operate without disruption.

Before you begin

Verify that your instance meets the following conditions before the upgrade can begin:

Supported service plans

Plan In-place upgrade available
Standard Yes
Plus Yes
Enterprise Yes
Lite No
Trial No
Enterprise with Data Isolation No
Premium API No
Premium MAU No

Upgrade your instance to watsonx Orchestrate

Complete the following steps to upgrade your watsonx Assistant instance:

  1. Go to cloud.ibm.com/resources and sign in with your IBM Cloud credentials.

  2. Locate and open the instance page for a watsonx Assistant instance on a compatible plan.

  3. If your account and instance are eligible, the upgrade starts automatically when you open the instance page. No manual action is required to begin the upgrade.

  4. While the upgrade is in progress, a banner on the instance page notifies you that watsonx Orchestrate features are being provisioned.

  5. After the upgrade completes, a banner confirms that the instance was upgraded to watsonx Orchestrate.

  6. When you return to the instance page later, the confirmation banner remains available so that you can identify upgraded instances and open the upgrade documentation.

Navigate back to Assistant builder

After the upgrade, access Assistant builder directly from within watsonx Orchestrate:

  1. In the watsonx Orchestrate interface, click the menu icon in the navigation menu.

  2. Click Assistant builder to open your existing assistants.

What remains in place after the upgrade

Your existing AI assistants and all associated configuration remain in place after the upgrade completes. The following assistant types continue to operate without modification:

  • Assistants that use Dialog flows
  • Assistants that use Actions