Tech giant IBM (IBM) has created a new AI tool that helps software engineers by handling repetitive tasks like finding and fixing bugs or writing code. It’s called iSWE-Agent, and it recently ranked first and second on a popular benchmark that tests how well AI tools can fix problems in Java code. The best-performing version used Anthropic’s (PC:ANTPQ) Claude 4.5 Sonnet AI and successfully fixed issues 33% of the time. The second-best version used only open-source models and came close with a 31% success rate.
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The tool works by reading a task, such as a bug report, and figuring out how to fix the code. Notably, IBM focused on Java rather than Python because most of its clients use Java, and Python benchmarks are now unreliable because many AI models have already been trained on those test sets. That makes their results less trustworthy. Java, on the other hand, is harder, and most AI tools don’t score very high on it, which gives a clearer picture of real-world performance.
What makes iSWE-Agent stand out is how it was built. Instead of using unsafe or overly complex methods, it uses IBM’s own open-source toolkit. It also edits code more intelligently, not just by guessing. As a result, IBM now plans to improve the tool even more and eventually connect it to systems that automatically fix bugs when software crashes.
Is IBM a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on IBM stock based on nine Buys, five Holds, and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. Furthermore, the average IBM price target of $303.08 per share implies that shares are trading near fair value.
