Feature parity for IBM® watsonx™ Assistant

IBM® watsonx™ Assistant can be deployed as a managed software as a service (SaaS) or installed on premises. New features are continuously added to each deployment's release cycle. To make informed decisions that align with your business needs, it is important to stay informed about the features available in each deployment.

Stay up to date with the latest features through the Release notes of watsonx Assistant.

The feature parity covers the following deployments:

IBM Cloud: for the IBM-managed instances that are provisioned as a service on IBM Cloud.
IBM Software Hub : for client-managed instances that are provisioned on the IBM Software Hub. It is an on-premises deployment and uses a stationary version of the continuous-delivered and continuous-integrated SaaS deployment for each of its releases into IBM Software Hub.

IBM Software Hub refers to the latest released version on on-premises. For more information about the latest version of Software Hub, refer to Latest version.

Parity by features' capabilities

Features can have their own capabilities, which might have limitations on what deployments support them. In the following sections, you can view the capabilities of each feature and if the deployments support these capabilities.

In the tables, you can find the following indications:

The green check icon indicates that the deployment supports the capability.
The green check with a warning icon indicates that the deployment supports the capability, but the capability might have specific implementations that differ from other deployments.
The red cross icon indicates that the deployment does not support the capability.

Generative AI

The support of the Generative AI capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Select a base model
Add prompt instructions
Enable or disable conversational search for the base LLM

Actions

Table. The support of the Actions capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Add Skill-based action
Add Custom-built action

Global settings

The support of the Global settings capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Ask clarifying questions		¹
Change conversation topic and as confirmation questions
Use watsonx.ai for information gathering
Detect mentions of hate, abuse and profanity (HAP) in the content
Autocorrection for spelling mistakes
Customize formats for local and date and time
Set an algorithm version for the assistant training
Upload and download the assistant's actions

¹ IBM Software Hub : Customizing response modes for new actions is not available.

Evaluate

The support of the Evaluate capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Evaluate response settings

Preview

The support of the Preview capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Preview assistant

Publish

The support of the Publish capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Publish content and revert publishing
View all versions
Download published version

Environments

The support of the Environments capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Add and preview environment
Get API details for the environment
Set up pre-message webhook
Set up post-message webhook
Set up log webhook
Set up audio webhook
Set up inactivity history
Enable session history
View the added channels, content and extensions for the environment

Analyze

The support of the Analyze capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
View data for action completion
View data for conversational search responses
View data for recognized and unrecognized requests
View data about conversations with assistants

Integration with web chat

The support of the Integration with Web chat capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Customize the chat UI
Edit the desktop and mobile launcher
Edit the chat home screen
Add live chat integration with eGain provider
Add live chat integration with Enghouse provider
Add live chat integration with Genesys SIP provider
Add live chat integration with Kustomer provider
Add live chat integration with NICE inContact provider
Add live chat integration with Oracle provider
Add live chat integration with Salesforce provider
Add live chat integration with Twilio provider
Add live chat integration with Zendesk provider
Add live chat integration with your own provider
Add suggestion to connect to agent
Enable web chat security
Get the code to embed the web chat

Integration with Phone

The support of the Integration with Phone capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Connect to Genesys SIP provider
Connect to Genesys Audio Connector provider		¹
Connect to Twilio provider
Connect to NICE inContact provider
Bring your own phone provider
Manage phone numbers
Configure speech to text and text to Speech
Configure SIP trunking security options
Handle call and transfer failures

¹ IBM Software Hub : Connecting to Genesys Audio Connector and speech configuration might be available via patch.

Integration with other channels

The support of the Integration with other channels capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Add SMS as a channel and customize provider with IntelePeer and Twilio
Add and customize Facebook messenger as a channel
Add and customize Genesys Bot Connector as a channel		¹
Add and customize Slack as a channel
Add and customize Microsoft teams as a channel
Add and customize WhatsApp with Twilio as a channel

¹ IBM Software Hub : Genesys Bot Connector as a channel might be available via patch.

Search integration

The support of the Search integration capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Add search integration with Elasticsearch
Add search integration with Milvus
Add search integration with a custom service
Configure contextual awareness for conversational search
Configure the search for conversational search
Configure citations for conversational search
Configure the content for "No results" and "Connectivity issues"

Integration with other extensions

The support of the Integration with other extensions capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Add integration with Segment as an extension
Build a custom extension

Activity Log

The support of the Activity Log capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
View the activity history for the assistant

Dialog support

Dialog support on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
Adding dialog
Dialog creation workflow
Creating intents
Using built-in intents
Creating a dialog
Testing your dialog
Gathering information with slots
Managing workflow with versions

Assistant settings

The support of the Assistant settings capabilities on each deployment.
Feature	IBM Cloud	IBM Software Hub
View the assistant details
Configure security certificates (SSL/TLS)
Get the details of assistant IDs and API data
Download or upload assistant data
Delete assistant