Learnings from COBOL modernization in the real world

There’s a lot of excitement right now about AI enabling mainframe application modernization. Boards are paying attention. CIOs are getting asked for a plan. AI is a genuine accelerator for COBOL modernization but to get results, AI needs additional context that source code alone can’t provide.Here’s what we’ve learned working with 400+ enterprise customers: mainframe modernization has two very different halves. The first half is reverse engineering, understanding what your existing systems actually do. The second half is forward engineering, building the new applications.

The first half is where mainframe projects live or die. However, coding assistants are genuinely good at only the second half. Give them a clear, validated spec and they’ll build modern applications fast.

We have learned that delivering successful COBOL modernization requires a solution that can reverse engineer deterministically, produce validated and traceable specs, and help those specs flow into ...