The future won't wait for your legacy systems

Yesterday’s essentials are today’s technical debt and transformation roadblocks. Mounting technical debt continues to challenge agility, productivity, and innovation. While these legacy systems often carry critical business logic and have earned their place through reliability, they now demand significant time and resources to maintain. Nearly 80% of IT teams report spending up to 25 hours per week just updating and patching aging systems—and nearly a third of those platforms can’t support modern workloads, according to a 2024 survey reported by CIO Dive. The result: reduced flexibility, rising operational costs, and real limitations on AI adoption and digital acceleration.

But the landscape has changed. Together cloud and AI have made high-effort transformation feasible and scalable. And today’s tech leaders are expected to do more than just keep the lights on—they’re out there building what’s next.

Modernization is no longer a moonshot. It’s a strategic move forward. In fact, 95% of IT decision-makers and developers say it’s essential to their organization’s success, according to the 2024 Red Hat Application Modernization Report.

The question now is how to do it—faster, with less risk, and in ways your business can sustain.

For years, modernization meant high costs, long timelines, and unacceptable risk. Replatforming or rehosting efforts often left companies stuck with outdated functionality running on newer infrastructure. And rewriting monoliths from scratch? Too complex, too costly, too slow.

But conditions have changed. And this time, it’s in your favor.

Four major shifts are redefining what’s possible—and practical—in modernization:

1. Cloud maturity has finally caught up with ambition.
   Ten years ago, moving to the cloud meant experimentation. Today, it’s the foundation. According to O’Reilly’s 2024 Tech Trends report, 90% of companies have adopted cloud technology. With better tooling, architecture patterns, and operational models, organizations now have the foundation to support modern, scalable platforms.
2. AI is no longer experimental—it’s transformational.
   While AI has been a part of modernizations for over two decades, generative AI is a game changer. Large language models and AI agents are now powerful accelerators - helping teams analyze legacy code, map dependencies, generate tests, and even assist with refactoring. But modernization is still complex. These tools support the work - they don’t replace the need for expertise, sound judgment, and careful orchestration. The result when automation and expertise work in sync? Reduced risk, faster outcomes, and less reliance on limited internal expertise. In fact, 78% of organizations now expect AI to help facilitate their modernization efforts.
3. Operational risk is rising fast.
   Legacy systems have powered businesses for decades - and many still deliver unmatched performance and reliability. But integrating them with today’s evolving business demands can create friction. As customer expectations, regulatory pressures, and AI-driven capabilities accelerate, the limitations of older platforms become more visible. Compliance updates grow more complex. Upgrades take longer. And as experienced specialists retire, continuity becomes harder to maintain. These systems aren't broken - but without adaptation, they can become bottlenecks to speed, flexibility, and innovation.
4. Innovation has become a moving target.
   In today’s market, speed alone isn’t the strategy - responsiveness is. Customers expect personalized, seamless, always-on experiences, and businesses need the agility to deliver. That responsiveness can’t stop at the front end. It requires flexible, integrated systems that support faster decision-making and shorter product cycles. But legacy platforms can create barriers - slowing development, complicating integration, and stalling the feedback loops that drive continuous improvement.
   
   The same challenges that once made modernization feel risky—scale, complexity, interdependencies—are now the very pressures driving change. What used to be deferred is becoming untenable. Fortunately, the enablers have evolved: AI makes high-effort transformation more achievable. Cloud architectures unlock scalability. And the business demands for speed, resilience, and innovation? They’re only growing.
   
   That’s where accelerated modernization comes in. It’s a smarter, faster, AI-powered way to transform outdated systems into scalable, cloud-native platforms - without the cost, risk, or time of traditional rebuilds.

Accelerated modernization is an AI-powered way to rebuild and future-proof legacy systems—faster, safer and with less complexity than traditional approaches.

At its core, this is about evolving how modernization gets done. Proven strategies like phased replatforming and modular design still play a critical role. But now they’re supported by generative AI and agentic workflows—tools that help teams better understand complexity, move with greater precision, and unlock functionality faster. The outcome isn’t just modernized code—it’s a more sustainable, scalable architecture that improves integration, performance, and long-term adaptability.

Accelerated modernization blends automation, AI-powered insight, and human expertise to streamline every phase of the process - without compromising continuity or quality.

Here’s how:

• AI-powered code understanding. We use intelligent tools to analyze legacy codebases—COBOL, PL/I, or others—and surface functionality, dependencies, and embedded business logic. Slalom experts validate the results to ensure accuracy and preserve what matters most.
• AI-powered documentation. Our tools scan and document the existing system in full—from dependencies and architecture to embedded business logic—creating a living knowledge base for teams.
• Intelligent code generation. AI agents assist in generating modular, scalable code—but always with human guidance. While these tools accelerate analysis and drafting, expert input is critical to ensure the code aligns with architecture goals and preserves the business logic at the core of your operations.
• Parallelized workflows. Automation in testing and code review enables more frequent development cycles—accelerating progress without skipping critical steps. Teams can move faster while staying aligned to established SDLC processes and maintaining full control.
• Scalable solutions. Modernized systems are built to grow with your business. We design future-ready architectures—modular, cloud-native, and adaptable to whatever comes next.

Our accelerated modernization solution isn’t tied to one AI stack. It’s fully decoupled from a specific toolset or LLM, so you can use the tools of today (and tomorrow) interchangeably. We help you integrate your preferred tools or build a custom agentic layer to match your architecture, teams, and goals. And with strong partnerships across Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Google Cloud, and others, we accelerate implementation without locking you in.

Slalom’s accelerated modernization delivers speed without sacrifice. Unlike traditional replatforming or rewrite projects, it balances innovation, scale, and continuity—on your terms.

• Accelerated impact: Automation removes bottlenecks helping teams deliver in weeks what used to take months.
• Reduced risk: Phased rollouts and human-in-the-loop validation reduce failure points. We combine generative AI with deterministic tools to analyze complex codebases—especially when documentation is missing or institutional knowledge has faded—giving teams a multi-lens baseline to modernize safely.
• Scalable expertise: Augmenting internal teams with AI agents helps stretch scarce legacy expertise and accelerate delivery without increasing headcount.
• Future-ready: Systems are rebuilt using modular, cloud-native patterns—grounded in your real architecture, not a vendor’s ideal. Our approach blends proven design with automation and AI-readiness, so you can extend capabilities, integrate faster, and evolve without starting over.

Modernization isn’t a tech refresh—it’s a strategic shift. One that helps you build systems aligned to growth, change, and long-term value.

True modernization lasts beyond go-live. It means building the confidence and capability to adapt, grow, and lead long after the project ends. That’s why every accelerated modernization engagement Slalom is involved with is shaped by a few core principles:

• Upskilling as we deliver. We don’t just modernize your systems—we modernize your teams. Your engineers work side by side with ours, gaining hands-on experience with modern tools, cloud-native architectures, and AI-driven workflows.
• Conscientious human-in-the-loop delivery. AI plays a critical role in accelerating modernization, but people stay in the driver’s seat. Our approach integrates human oversight at every step—ensuring quality, knowledge transfer, and better outcomes.
• Adapted to your teams, not the other way around. We meet you where you are. Whether you’re just beginning a mainframe migration or scaling modern platforms, we tailor our frameworks and delivery models to fit your organization—not force a one-size-fits-all approach.
• Designed for sustainability. Our accelerated modernization solution avoids creating tomorrow’s legacy. It’s built using repeatable patterns, reusable components, and clean documentation so teams can build forward faster, without locking themselves into new monoliths.

Modernization doesn’t have to mean starting over. You don’t need a massive rebuild team waiting in the wings. You need a partner who works with you—combining AI, engineering, and business insight to unlock real outcomes.

At Slalom, we modernize with your teams. That means faster progress, lower risk, and stronger internal capability. With our accelerated modernization solution, your organization can finally move past outdated systems—and toward a future that’s more agile, scalable, and ready for what’s next.