IBM stock gained on Thursday as strong earnings from Accenture boosted sentiment around the consulting sector.
The company also announced a self-hosted deployment option for IBM Bob, its agentic software development platform.
IBM shares rose as much as 5% during the session although it was trading up 2% at the time of writing, while Accenture surged more than 20% after reporting stronger-than-expected results and raising its full-year outlook.
Accenture results provide a boost for IBM
Accenture reported quarterly revenue of $9.28 billion, above analysts’ expectations of $8.86 billion.
Its stronger results and outlook suggested that its consulting business was holding up despite broader macroeconomic pressures and concerns about artificial intelligence disrupting traditional consulting services.
The results also offered some relief for Accenture, whose shares had fallen nearly 32% before Thursday’s session.
The strength in consulting was relevant for IBM because consulting is the company’s second-largest business unit.
IBM also generates a significant portion of its revenue from higher-margin software, while its legacy mainframe business remains part of its portfolio.
Cognizant Technology, another consulting competitor, also raised its annual profit forecast in July, citing strong growth in its financial services division.
Cognizant shares were also higher on Thursday.
For IBM investors, the latest consulting-sector results came after a difficult period for the company.
IBM shares had fallen 26% year to date through Wednesday’s close following its second-quarter results and a rare pre-announcement that signalled weaker customer spending.
IBM’s recent earnings raised concerns
IBM reported $17.2 billion in second-quarter revenue, below Wall Street expectations, and reduced its full-year guidance.
Performance varied across the company’s business segments. Software revenue remained resilient, while infrastructure revenue fell 7% and consulting revenue was flat.
CEO Arvind Krishna said customers shifted quarterly budgets towards servers, storage and memory products at the end of June to get ahead of expected price increases for “supply-constrained infrastructure.”
Krishna also attributed the quarterly results to execution issues, saying IBM did not “adapt and move quickly enough” to prevent several large deals from falling through before the end of the quarter.
The results raised concerns about IBM’s organic growth and contributed to the decline in its shares.
Accenture’s recent results offered a contrasting signal for the consulting industry, although the two companies have different business mixes.
IBM expands AI deployment options
Separately, IBM announced self-hosted deployment for IBM Bob, its agentic software development platform, as the company seeks to address enterprise demand for greater control over AI systems.
The new deployment option allows organisations to run AI-powered software development in on-premises, private-cloud, sovereign-cloud and air-gapped environments.
IBM said the setup is designed to help enterprises keep sensitive code, data and workflows within environments they control.
The offering is aimed at regulated industries that require greater control over data residency, security policies and AI governance.
Customers can run supported models on premises, including in air-gapped environments, or connect Bob to external model services through hybrid configurations.
“The future of enterprise AI will depend on security, governance and sovereignty,” said Neel Sundaresan, GM of AI and Automation at IBM.
“Organizations need AI that operates inside environments they have control over, especially when working with sensitive code and regulated data,” Sundaresan added.
He said Bob’s self-hosted deployment allows enterprises to use agentic AI while maintaining security, compliance and operational control.
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