By Anwesha Pattanaik
Publication Date: 2026-05-15 10:57:00
IBM has introduced Forward Deployed Units (FDUs), a new delivery model that pairs small, senior teams with AI agents to speed up enterprise AI deployments.
These units combine experienced personnel with digital agents to accelerate the rollout of AI initiatives and address longstanding challenges in moving from experimentation to live production.
IBM is currently deploying FDUs in organisations such as Riyadh Air, Heineken, Nestlé, and Pearson, and has begun rolling them out on a global scale across regions including Asia Pacific, Europe and North America.
According to IBM, the existing delivery structures for enterprise technology rely heavily on labour-based models.
The company emphasises that in the context of AI, the traditional method of increasing personnel to scale output is no longer sufficient.
Instead, IBM positions the operating model and team composition as critical to achieving business outcomes, noting that most current approaches are still built for…
