Another company is putting its faith in AI: IBM Cloud. This company’s free support will change from January 2026 because its Basic Support plan will no longer use direct human assistance. Until now, this plan allowed customers to ask for help on technical issues to IBM Cloud’s support team. However, with the incorporation of AI, users will have to make use of self-service tools and the company’s AI assistant.
Many experts have already talked about AI possibly taking over our jobs in the future, but, for now, let’s focus on this case.
IBM Cloud’s Basic Support plan
This plan is free for every IBM Cloud customer. The company describes it as ‘’basic business protection’’ included with Pay-As-You-Go and Subscription accounts.
Currently, this plan allows users to contact the support team 24 hours a day to solve any technical issue. The negative thing about it is that it doesn’t offer guaranteed response times or provide a dedicated account manager.
Changes in 2026
IBM Cloud sent an email to its customers informing about the free plan important changes from January 2026:
Users will no longer be able to open or escalate technical support cases through the portal or APIs.
They could self-report service issues, like hardware or backup failures, via the IBM Cloud console.
Customers could still open billing and account cases via the support portal.
What’s more, the company highlighted that clients could continue using its AI assistant, powered by Watsonx and improved in 2025. This assistant will be the main assistance tool in the basic level.
In addition, in 2026 a new function will be launched: Report an Issue. It is thought to offer a faster way to solve issues. Wait, wait… that’s not all! The company is also increasing the support documentation library with more in-depth self-help content.
IBM Cloud’s recommendations
In the email, the company made sure its customers knew that those needing real technical support, faster response times, or severity-level control, will need to upgrade the support plan.
The prices of these plans start at $200 per month, setting a clear line between free AI-driven help and full human assistance.
The company’s official explanation
IBM Cloud argued this change by saying that the free support change “aligns with industry standards and improves the support experience.”
In practice, this decision makes IBM Cloud have a very similar offer to other clouds’ like AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Their basic plans also include access to community forums, online documentation, and billing help.
Differences with market leaders
However, there is a key difference: IBM Cloud has only between 2% and 4% of the market share whereas leaders like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud control 30%, 20% and 13% respectively, according to Synergy Research Group.
This means IBM Cloud’s decision can be seen as an attempt to reduce costs by limiting free support. Also, it could indicate that the company isn’t interested in focusing on only using basic services without investing in payment plans.
Not an isolated case
IBM Cloud move is not the only one in the industry, the Chinese company Tencent also decided to stop serving clients who only used basic services of the cloud because they were not profitable.
We live in a world where technology is advancing so fast and AI is becoming more present in different fields. So, now it’s up to you: you can either try the IBM Cloud AI Assistant and see if the free model works for you, or invest in paid support. Do you think getting rid of free human support and making use of artificial intelligence is a smart move?