Juniper Networks and IBM announced plans to expand their collaboration around joint sales, marketing and product integration efforts. The companies are expected to integrate Juniper's Mist AI and IBM watsonx with the aim to address the complexities of managing IT networks that can help improve user experiences and lower operational costs.

The latest collaboration will focus on bringing Mist AI, a key part of Juniper's AI-Native Networking Platform that uses AI to optimize the E2E client-to-cloud experience across wireless, wired, SD-WAN, data center and security experiences, with IBM watsonx, IBM's portfolio of AI products designed to accelerate the impact of generative AI and drive productivity in core enterprise workflows.

IBM and Juniper will work together to build upon two internal IBM projects:

• IBM Guest Services: a project that integrates Mist AI with IBM watsonx Orchestrate to help automate IT network support and minimize manual intervention of Wi-Fi support tickets to help resolve guest Wi-Fi network issues.

• IBM AskNetwork: an internal tool in development by IBM's CIO office using IBM watsonx Orchestrate to integrate with tools such as Juniper's Mist AI to help resolve network infrastructure problems and diagnose end user issues. AskNetwork is expected to simplify complex technical data into consumable, actionable insights to help enterprises optimize network performance.

Juniper and IBM also plan to explore additional capabilities, such as location-based insights and diagnostics that can help drive additional value around facilities management and patient / customer user experience in industries such as healthcare and retail.

"Our collaboration with IBM represents a significant leap forward in AI-Native Networking," said Bob Friday, Group Vice President and Chief AI Officer at Juniper Networks. "Bringing two powerful visions for cloud AIOps in the enterprise together with Mist AI and IBM watsonx can help us showcase greater efficiency, agility and security to customers."

"IBM is committed to harnessing the power of trustworthy AI to help businesses achieve new levels of innovation and efficiency," said Ayal Steinberg, General Manager, Technical Sales and Client Engineering, IBM. "Our collaboration with Juniper illustrates how ecosystem partnerships can help accelerate the adoption of AI for critical business use cases such as network management, demonstrating even greater value to enterprise customers."