Newer Model Support in Assistant Builder Features

Per the official documentation only four models can be used for the watsonx Orchestrate Assistant Builder features (e.g., Conversational Search Answer Generation, Conversational Search Query Rewrite, Conversational Skills, and Custom Action Information Gathering).

Of the four models, only one has not yet been deprecated by watsonx Orchestrate.

The remaining model, llama-3-2-90b-vision-instruct, is more than one year old. Many clients, including Verizon, have long since moved on to llama 3.3 series models (9+ months old) and llama 4 series models (5+ months old), and newer models will continue to be released. Therefore, this Idea request is for select newer models to be supported for Assistant Builder features going forward. This need is particularly important (and urgent) for clients who were early watsonx Assistant adopters, built a large number of Assistants, and then migrated (at IBM's instruction) from watsonx Assistant to watsonx Orchestrate, as they need to continue to use their existing Assistants, in on-premises software deployments of watsonx Orchestrate, with newer models going forward (until the Assistants are eventually transitioned to Agents down the road).

Given that obviously not all models will be suitable for the Assistant Builder features, no specific model's support is requested. Restrictions on which newer models will be supported are reasonable and expected. This Idea is requesting that some newer models be supported in general, both immediately and in the ongoing future, and that IBM publish a list of these models for clients to pick from to continue to leverage Assistant Builder features on newer models.

N.B., As seen in the attached screenshot, we are aware that there may be additional models that could work for these features currently that are not in the official documentation. However, only one additional model in this list, llama-3-3-70b-instruct, which is 9+ months old, is not already on the deprecated list, so the situation remains the same. And, as time goes on, the issue will become more severe as newer and yet newer models are released. A long-term solution is requested.