Mainframe teams turn to AI for modernisation gains

Kyndryl’s latest State of mainframe modernisation report has found that organisations can achieve as much as a 225% return on investment in mainframe modernisation projects, yet many lack the necessary skills to achieve this.

The survey of 500 business and IT leaders in mid-sized and large organisations found that moving off the mainframe drove a 12% increase in profit. However, modernising mainframe systems gave organisations a 9% increase in profit, while integrating mainframes with other enterprise systems yielded 10% profit growth.

Commenting on the report, Petra Goude, global practice leader for core enterprise and zCloud at Kyndryl, said: “Mainframes continue to occupy a central role in the hybrid world and are evolving to serve new use cases, with AI [artificial intelligence] and security increasingly influencing modernisation plans.”

The survey found that 86% of respondents are quickly adopting AI and generative AI (GenAI) to accelerate their mainframe modernisation initiatives. A third of respondents indicated that the platform has become a foundation for running AI-enabled workloads. Additionally, almost half aim to use GenAI to unlock and transform critical mainframe data into actionable insights.

Looking at the use of AI in mainframe computing, the survey found that 41% of those polled see an opportunity to use GenAI to create faster, repeatable operational actions that are less prone to human error. Using AI to help manage mainframe operations may help some IT decision-makers tackle the skills crisis that is preventing them from running mainframe modernisation projects. In particular, 18% of those implementing mainframe modernisation projects involving integration with other platforms reported that insufficient expertise has been the main challenge for project success. Over a quarter (28%) said their organisations lack the right level of skills to modernise their mainframes effectively.

According to the IT and business leaders polled, 53% of people entering the workforce lack mainframe skills. The survey also found that in almost half of organisations (49%), staff with mainframe skills are retiring, taking their skills with them, which leaves their company with fewer people who are able to manage and maintain mainframe systems and support integration and modernisation initiatives.

According to Kyndryl, GenAI can help to address the mainframe skills shortage by enabling developers to untangle, modernise and convert legacy code. GenAI can also figure out dependencies between blocks of code and applications, and by reading code, it can also be used to create technical documentation.

However, Kyndryl’s survey found that 43% of the people polled lack the skills to use AI and GenAI. A US retailer quoted in the report, said: “We’re worried about a shortage of the requisite skillset required to navigate and implement complex technologies effectively. It’s a commonly known fact that finding individuals proficient in both mainframe systems and cutting edge AI development is a very difficult task.”