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Azure OpenAI vs IBM Watson Studio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.8
Azure OpenAI enhances productivity and efficiency with cost savings, fast project completion, improved code accuracy, and scalability.
Sentiment score
5.0
IBM Watson Studio boosts efficiency, scalability, and lead conversions but seeks improved ROI relative to costs and quick market time.
The product offers a significant return on investment through its scalability and integration capabilities.
Process Automation Lead at CONDIACTOR
My customers have seen returns on investment through increased efficiency, automated calculations, improved accuracy in pricing, and reduced staffing needs due to the automation.
Director, Channel and Alliances at Akinon
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.1
Microsoft support is professional but experiences delays; users desire AI chatbots, improved ticketing, and quicker responses.
Sentiment score
6.8
IBM Watson Studio is praised for its effective and thorough support, often rated highly compared to Dialogflow.
It is important for organizations like Microsoft to apply OpenAI solutions within their own structures.
Associate consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
If the initial support personnel cannot resolve a query, it escalates to someone with more expertise.
Data Engineer at a educational organization with 201-500 employees
The support quality depends on the SLA or the contract terms.
Process Automation Lead at CONDIACTOR
The community access is weak, which limits the ability to engage in discussions and find documentation and examples of similar cases effectively.
Director, Channel and Alliances at Akinon
I would rate the technical support of IBM Watson Studio a solid ten out of ten.
Data Governance System Specialist at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.3
Azure OpenAI is scalable with technical adaptability but faces challenges in cost inefficiencies, token limits, and regional capacity.
Sentiment score
7.1
IBM Watson Studio scales well, adapts to cloud platforms, supports integration, but may require high resources, affecting cost-efficiency.
The scalability depends on whether the application is multimodal or uses a single model.
Associate consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The API works fine, allowing me to scale indefinitely.
IT Manager at Pluris Midia
In terms of scalability, I would rate it nine for technical ability to expand.
Consultant/Owner at Transc byte
Watson Studio is very scalable.
Process Automation Lead at CONDIACTOR
I have had a chance to communicate with the technical support of IBM Watson Studio, which has been responsive and helpful.
Data Governance System Specialist at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
I rate IBM Watson Studio seven out of ten for scalability because while it scales, it requires significant resources to do so, making it expensive compared to some competitors.
Director, Channel and Alliances at Akinon
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Azure OpenAI is mostly stable with minor downtime during peak times; complex tasks can pose occasional challenges.
Sentiment score
7.6
IBM Watson Studio is praised for its stability and reliability, with recent updates enhancing performance despite occasional large-scale calculation issues.
Overall, it is acceptable, but the major issue we currently face in this project is the hallucination problem.
AI Engineering Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The solution works fine, particularly for enterprises or even some small enterprises.
Associate consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would rate the stability of Azure OpenAI at eight out of ten.
Consultant/Owner at Transc byte
Expertise in optimization is necessary to manage such issues effectively.
Director, Channel and Alliances at Akinon
I find IBM Watson Studio to be quite robust, with minimal downtime and great support regarding stability and reliability.
Data Governance System Specialist at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Azure OpenAI users need updates for better model tuning, integration, support, security, scalability, and flexible data management tools.
IBM Watson Studio needs a user-friendly interface, enhanced functionality, better support, and streamlined navigation to improve user experience.
They should consider bringing non-OpenAI models also into their fold, just as AWS Bedrock, which provides its own models and models from other commercial providers through the Bedrock service.
Senior Principal Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Expanding token limitations for scaling while ensuring concurrent user access is crucial.
Data Engineer at a educational organization with 201-500 employees
Azure OpenAI should provide solutions to deliver local dedicated models for customers and should enable model training based on customer data.
Consultant/Owner at Transc byte
The platform is associated with a complicated setup process and demands heavy hardware, making it expensive to scale.
Director, Channel and Alliances at Akinon
One area that could be improved is the backup and restoration of the database and the overall database configuration.
Process Automation Lead at CONDIACTOR
I wish learning IBM Watson Studio could be easier and more gradual, as it is a complex task.
Software Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Setup Cost

Azure OpenAI pricing is complex, with costs varying by usage, resources, and can be offset by flexible agreements.
IBM Watson Studio's pricing varies, seen as reasonable by some, but costly for complex AI, with regional pricing challenges.
The pricing is very good for handling various kinds of jobs.
IT Manager at Pluris Midia
Recent iterations have increased token allowances, mitigating some challenges associated with concurrent user access at scale.
Data Engineer at a educational organization with 201-500 employees
IBM Watson Studio is considered rather expensive, with a rating of six or seven.
Director, Channel and Alliances at Akinon
 

Valuable Features

Azure OpenAI excels in precision, ease of use, and integration, enhancing automation, data processing, and scalability with GPT models.
IBM Watson Studio excels in automation, integration, and user-friendly tools for predictive analytics, machine learning, and big data projects.
OpenAI models help me create predictive analysis products and chat applications, enabling me to automate tasks and reduce the workforce needed for repetitive work, thereby streamlining operations.
Data Engineer at a educational organization with 201-500 employees
The most valuable features are Azure AI Foundry; we use Azure AI Foundry to deploy various Azure OpenAI agents within Azure, such as Assistant, Azure OpenAI Assistant using Azure AI Foundry.
Senior Principal Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
The functionality in Azure OpenAI that I found most valuable is the simplicity of selecting any model and its superior intelligence compared to local LLMs.
Consultant/Owner at Transc byte
This capability saves a significant amount of time by automating processes that typically involve manual work, such as data cleaning, feature engineering, and predictive analytics.
Director, Channel and Alliances at Akinon
I believe the AutoAI features of IBM Watson Studio have significantly helped in my data projects by automating model selection and hyperparameter tuning.
Data Governance System Specialist at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
It integrates well with other platforms and offers good scalability.
Process Automation Lead at CONDIACTOR
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure OpenAI
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Watson Studio
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the AI Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Azure OpenAI is 6.5%, down from 15.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson Studio is 1.6%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Azure OpenAI6.5%
IBM Watson Studio1.6%
Other91.9%
AI Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

RC
AI Engineering Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Empowerment in regulatory content generation marred by inconsistency and hallucination issues
While it is good, we sometimes encounter hallucination issues, which is a significant concern. We are changing the prompt and fine-tuning it, but we still face some inconsistent behavior. We have specific instructions and keep the temperature very low to avoid overly generative responses, ensuring we receive specific answers from the particular source document without deviation; however, the results can sometimes vary. The main issue with Azure OpenAI is the inconsistency in output. We have a set template instruction, and it should generate within those parameters without any creativity because it's meant for regulatory authoring documents. The business provides the template instructions, and it should generate accordingly. While we have different prompts for various needs, sometimes it generates the correct results, and sometimes it does not, leading to inconsistency. For stability, based on the current model I am using, I would rate Azure OpenAI a 7 due to the ongoing hallucination issues.
AA
Director, Channel and Alliances at Akinon
Automated processes improve efficiency while user interface and accessibility need enhancements
IBM Watson Studio, while powerful, lacks user-friendliness. It is not easy to use, particularly for medium or small enterprises or less experienced staff. Another aspect that requires improvement is the complexity involved in computer vision tasks. The integration capabilities have not significantly impacted workflow since there are simpler tools like Alteryx and Nine. The platform is associated with a complicated setup process and demands heavy hardware, making it expensive to scale. IBM should work on optimizing the user interface and enhancing the product's accessibility for medium and small enterprises.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure OpenAI?
The product is easy to integrate with our IT workflow.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure OpenAI?
In terms of pricing for Azure OpenAI, I would rate it as average compared to Gemini. Currently, Gemini is becoming increasingly popular, which prompts leadership to consider a switch primarily due ...
What needs improvement with Azure OpenAI?
I have not thought about how Azure OpenAI can be improved. I have not explored AI model customization in Azure OpenAI, but it's not a very common use case to do model customization. There are certa...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Watson Studio?
IBM Watson Studio is considered rather expensive, with a rating of six or seven. The pricing could be optimized relative to the features and capabilities of the product.
What needs improvement with IBM Watson Studio?
Better documentation and more tutorials could enhance user experience with IBM Watson Studio.
What is your primary use case for IBM Watson Studio?
My usual use cases for IBM Watson Studio include data analysis and model building.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Watson Studio, IBM Data Science Experience, Data Science Experience, DSx
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
GroupM, Accenture, Fifth Third Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure OpenAI vs. IBM Watson Studio and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.