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IBM Software / SaaS Global

IBM

Enterprise Knowledge Search

IBM’s CIO organization needed to modernize the w3 intranet so employees could search for people, tools and IT support more easily while the platform itself moved off older virtualized infrastructure onto a more maintainable cloud-native foundation.

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8 locations globally
More than 90% of IBM employees access w3
≈ 5,000 daily searches

Reported impact

Business outcome

IBM gave employees a faster and more personalized intranet experience while creating a cleaner, more supportable platform for future workplace AI features.

  • Productivity Improvement
  • Scalability

Solution

The IBM CIO organization rebuilt the w3 intranet by modernizing infrastructure, applications and AI-assisted user experiences at the same time. First, the team migrated from legacy infrastructure to a CIO Hybrid Cloud container platform and standardized deployment through a CI/CD model, which improved release rigor and global routing performance. It then refactored the user experience around GraphQL, ReactJS and the IBM Carbon Design System so search, people, news, apps and IT support could live inside one coherent interface. On top of that new foundation, IBM watsonx.ai, IBM watsonx Assistant and IBM Granite models were introduced to power more intelligent search and self-service experiences. The result is a personalized intranet that connects multiple internal services while using AI to surface the right content and support options inside a single, modern digital workplace.

Data flow

Employee activity and internal service data flow through the modernized w3 experience, where the unified GraphQL and React framework surfaces search, people, news and support data and AI services help interpret requests and personalize responses.

Solution architecture

4 components · 2 layers
  1. Compute
    • IBM watsonx.ai Adds generative AI capabilities to the modernized w3 intranet experience.
    • IBM Granite Provides the large language models used to power intelligent search and assistance in the new w3.
  2. Serving
    • IBM watsonx Assistant Supports AI-powered self-service and assistance within the intranet and IT support flows.
    • IBM Carbon Design System Provides the common design framework for the modernized, consumer-grade intranet experience.

Architecture clues

  • Combines search, people, news, apps and IT support in one interface
  • Moved from legacy infrastructure to a containerized hybrid cloud platform
  • Uses shortest-path routing across global locations

Evidence from the source

Once the move to CIO Hybrid Cloud platform ... was completed, the new w3 foundation was established with IBM® watsonx.ai™, IBM watsonx Assistant™ and large language models (LLMs) powered by IBM Granite™.
The IBM intranet—known as w3—serves as a centralized platform for obtaining insights about the people, tools and applications that drive the company.
Users conduct ≈ 5,000 daily searches to retrieve data and knowledge.
Transparency Evidence & methodology 90/100 reference value · 84% confidence · 1 source

Review how this reference was scored and trace each normalized claim back to its documented source.

01

Scoring methodology

How scores are calculated

Customer Reference Value measures usefulness as a customer reference. Evidence Confidence measures the quality and traceability of available evidence, not independent verification.

Customer reference value90/100
  • Problem clarity20/20
    Measures whether the customer's operational problem is specific enough to compare.
  • Implementation depth25/25
    Rewards named components, data flow, integrations, and architecture detail.
  • Outcome specificity20/20
    Measures whether the reported benefit is concrete rather than a generic claim.
  • Quantified impact15/25
    1 metric describe measurable impact.
  • Deployment scale10/10
    Rewards evidence of a live or scaled deployment and meaningful integration scope.
Evidence confidence84%
  • Source authority20/25
    The main evidence is an official vendor-published customer story.
  • Claim traceability21/25
    10 of 12 key fields link to a named source.
  • Direct evidence15/20
    3 direct source quotes retained.
  • Date provenance10/10
    The publication date comes from the source page or publisher.
  • Source transparency8/10
    1 source reference document publisher, URL, authority, retrieval, and supported fields.
  • Implementation specificity10/10
    Rewards source-backed components, data flow, quantified impact, and a specific outcome.
02

Traceability

Sources & provenance

Field coverage shows which facts each source supports. Dates are shown only when documented by the source.

  1. IBM

    IBM customer story

    First-party
    https://www.ibm.com/case-studies/ibm-w3
    Source type
    Vendor-published customer story
    Published
    Jan 2, 2025
    Supports
    • Customer
    • Business problem
    • Solution
    • Products
    • Solution components
    • Data flow
    • Integrations
    • technical area
    • use case category
    • Business outcome
    • outcome category
    • Metrics
    • Architecture
    • evidence quotes
    • Publication date

Date evidence

Not separately sourced Industry, Region, Company size. Treat these normalized attributes as lower-confidence until a dedicated source is added.

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