VMware Embraces AI with VMware Cloud Foundation: A Strategic Move Amid Chal

Published Date : 12/09/2025 

Broadcom, the owner of VMware, announced that its VMware Cloud Foundation platform is now AI-native at the VMware Explore conference. This move is aimed at keeping up with the rapid adoption of AI in the tech industry, despite ongoing challenges with licensing policy changes. 

Broadcom, the owner of VMware, announced at the VMware Explore conference that its VMware Cloud Foundation platform is now AI-native. This announcement comes as the company battles bad press over licensing policy changes that have dogged it since acquiring VMware in November 2023. The ending of the platform’s free tier, reports of aggressive sales tactics, and several court cases, including those focused on existing agreements, have led many users to rethink their IT stack. Nutanix, SUSE, and IBM have been among the beneficiaries of those leaving the VMware stable.

But the nature of VMware deployments means that they are often complex, and extricating workloads from heavily virtualized environments running on the platform can come with high migration costs and significant risks to an organization’s QoS metrics. Many users prefer to stay and pay the devil they know rather than take the risk of migrating to an alternative.

Engineering AI into VMware’s offerings is fraught with danger and the potential for identical fallout. Re-architecturing the VMware platform to integrate AI at its core could mean that end-users’ workloads might suffer from breaking changes. The deeper the breaking changes, the greater the potential negative ramifications.

Broadcom’s initial aims are to make it simpler for its users to deploy AI models and agents inside their existing environments. VMware Private AI Services, set to ship with VCF 9 subscriptions next year, will include all the elements required to build and run AI on-premise or at least outside hyperscale facilities. It will feature a model store (with many organizations likely to use open-source, smaller models), indexing services, vector databases, an agentic AI builder, and a ready-made API gateway to facilitate optimized machine-to-machine communications between separate AI models.

Conference attendees were told that AI’s presence in the enterprise is only going to grow, making it logical for AI to be a feature of every VMware-based infrastructure. Currently, what Broadcom is offering is a nod in the AI direction, but it is not unique or groundbreaking. The company also announced improvements to the VMware Tanzu Platform, which include simpler publishing of MCP servers and a new data lakehouse, Tanzu Data Intelligence.

One of the more practical additions is Intelligent Assist for VCF, a chatbot with access to the VMware knowledgebase. This AI-powered chatbot aims to extend the time between a user raising an issue or question and speaking to a human for assistance.

The excitement around widespread adoption of containers once led many to declare that the end was nigh for ‘traditional’ virtualization, much like the explosion of cloud services was to spell the end for on-premise databases, and thus Oracle. However, the reality is that legacy infrastructure compels enterprise users to consolidate on the platforms they have invested in, despite high license fees and costs.

VMware may be sprinkling the deals between it and its customers with a little AI fairy-dust, but it knows that its long-term income is guaranteed by the presence of legacy infrastructure at the core of the enterprise. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS): 

Q: What is VMware Cloud Foundation?

A: VMware Cloud Foundation is a platform that integrates VMware’s compute, storage, and network virtualization technologies to provide a consistent and automated infrastructure for hybrid cloud environments.

Q: What is VMware Private AI Services?

A: VMware Private AI Services is a suite of tools and services designed to help users build, deploy, and manage AI models and agents within their existing VMware environments.

Q: Why did VMware make its platform AI-native?

A: VMware made its platform AI-native to keep up with the rapid adoption of AI in the technology industry and to provide its users with the tools to deploy AI models more easily within their existing environments.

Q: What challenges is VMware facing with its licensing policies?

A: VMware is facing challenges with its licensing policies, including the ending of the platform’s free tier, reports of aggressive sales tactics, and several court cases involving existing agreements.

Q: What is Intelligent Assist for VCF?

A: Intelligent Assist for VCF is an AI-powered chatbot designed to help users by providing access to the VMware knowledgebase, extending the time between raising an issue and speaking to a human for assistance. 

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