How is AI leveraged in the IBM i environments to optimize operations?

With the current explosion of free AI tools, the breadth of availability of refined AI solutions has experienced a significant upsurge. Businesses and consumers stand to benefit immensely from this advancement. While the entire scope of AI’s impact is still unclear, it will play a decisive role in determining the future of IT.?

Aided by AI, IBM i industry leaders have access to a wide array of insights and tools to streamline and modernize their IBM i ecosystems for problem-solving. Such coding support improves the code quality and efficiency through early detection of possible lapses.?

AI Use Cases for Development Activities

Several ways in which AI enhances coding speed, quality, and overall developer productivity in IBM i environments include:

Mastering Latest Technologies

Tools such as ChatGPT and CoPilot assist those new to the field of web technologies and modern web-based applications. AI augments the products and enhances the pace of learning the technologies. Upon adding the appropriate queries for code improvement, the tools supply beneficial recommendations that make the applications more user-friendly, visually appealing, and more efficient. RPG developers who need to build a UI or explore the UI/UX trends and standards benefit from these AI tools.

Maintaining Code Hygiene

The AI tools use the best coding practices with the appropriate syntax and formatting.?

Documentation

Tools such as ChatGPT can also generate documentation for the codes developed by developers.?

Testing Needs

AI saves time on testing by generating test data, DB files, and unit test writing. For instance, when developing a web application using an API, developers need data to populate the front end to get the actual information, ChatGPT can be used to create a mock dataset of users and define some parameters. The tool will generate responses accordingly.??????????

High Availability/Disaster Recovery (HA/DR)

HA/DR activities include huge volumes of tasks and processes to keep the systems running, an aspect that AI can eventually replace, easing pressure on the IT staff to focus on the more complex and high-priority tasks. In HA/DR, time and speed are of significant essence and AI tools can only enhance accuracy and speed for data backup and disaster recovery.

Security

Any newer technology raises concerns of being used for nefarious activities and automated cyber-attacks. However, it also presents the potential for IT teams to utilize AI to prevent those attacks. AI-powered vulnerability detection tools help identify threats in the IBM i environments in real-time.??

Cautionary Tale

A popular warning from Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI states - “One thing I’m particularly worried that these models could be used for large-scale disinformation. Now that they’re getting better at writing computer code, they can be used for offensive cyber-attacks.” While it is of primary importance to explore the scope of AI in development activities, it’s also of paramount importance to understand the challenges and limitations attached to using AI, some of which are:

• Since it’s still under trial, so human intervention is a must
• Using AI should be in smaller chunks as there are limits on data input and outputs
• Every interaction should occur with the assumption that any individual across the globe will be able to read what’s been shared
• No private or organizational confidential information should be shared??

Such precautions exhibit the high levels of risk involved with AI and also the amount of work that’s yet to be done to make the platform completely secure for software development. However, IBM i teams have already started to explore AI opportunities for uncovering new business potential and taking technology innovation to the next level.