News – AI, Modernization, and Mainframe Momentum: This Week’s Industry News

BMC Expands AI-Powered Mainframe Solutions

BMC Software has announced new innovations with purpose-built AI embedded in the mainframe tools that operators and developers use daily. As experienced mainframe professionals retire and expertise becomes harder to access, BMC offers application intelligence and institutional knowledge built into the workflow. 

These new capabilities advance BMC’s long-term vision for the future of AI in mainframe transformation—evolving from AI that delivers insight to AI that enables coordinated, governed execution across development and operations workflows.

 Giving Every Developer Context into Application Performance

 Developers who understand critical mainframe applications are retiring, with 66% of the workforce now identifying as Gen Z or millennial, according to BMC’s 2025 State of the Mainframe report. While AI can help younger developers interpret code, organizations still lack a consolidated view of application risk, complexity, and institutional knowledge concentration — visibility needed for confident modernization and succession planning.

Building on BMC AMI zAdviser Enterprise, the new Application Analysis capability combines source code analysis, DevX telemetry, and productivity data into a single AI-generated report. Using mainframe-native data, it highlights stability patterns, code complexity, and modernization recommendations, helping leaders identify high-risk applications and focus their efforts more effectively.

Putting Institutional Knowledge to Work

 As the mainframe skills gap widens and experienced professionals retire, organizations risk losing the institutional knowledge required to operate critical applications and systems. BMC AMI Assistant—now pervasive across the BMC AMI portfolio—brings Knowledge Hub and Knowledge Expert Chat into the workflow, making institutional knowledge accessible from sources such as runbooks, tickets, log files, and prior resolutions. This enables teams to close skills gaps and act with confidence.

 A new mainframe security solution was also introduced, as SSL/TLS certificate lifespans are set to shrink from 398 days to 47 days by 2029. BMC AMI Digital Certificate Management automates certificate lifecycle management for mainframe environments, integrating with enterprise platforms like Venafi and Keyfactor. It provides a unified integration layer that helps prevent outages and compliance risks, eliminating the need for manual processes without requiring infrastructure changes.

 New BMC solutions for orchestration

 The company today also expanded on the recently introduced agentic AI innovations for the Control-M solution, which help orchestrate business processes across hybrid environments and diverse technologies in the AI era, with a new Control-M solution. Announced today, the new Control-M Archive Service automatically archives job logs and output data, providing a cloud-native, long-term repository for auditing, regulatory compliance, and post-execution analysis.

Source: BMC

IBM Introduces IBM Bob Premium Package for Z

IBM is excited to announce IBM Bob Premium Package for Z, which integrates and enhances the capabilities of IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z to deliver advanced features for enterprise-scale mainframe applications. IBM Bob Premium Package for Z is currently available in tech preview. 

 AI-powered tool for enterprise developers

Modern developers expect a cutting-edge, agentic integrated development environment (IDE) experience and teams working on IBM Z applications can experience that with IBM Bob.

 IBM Bob is an AI-powered development tool for enterprise developers that can plan, execute, validate and govern multi-step modernization tasks across the software development lifecycle (SDLC). It brings AI together with agentic orchestration to actively drive complex development workflows directly within the IDE.

 Built on IBM Bob, the Premium Package for Z brings deep IBM Z domain language and middleware expertise directly into the IBM Bob experience. It adds Z-specific context, advanced analysis tooling and enterprise-aware intelligence that can provide the platform insights for mainframe application development. Delivered through an integrated IDE, it supports editing, linting and debugging for z/OS applications while leveraging rich contextual signals such as application metadata, language and middleware awareness and platform‑specific tooling. Together, these capabilities can drive application‑wide visibility, comprehensive documentation, code understanding and standards‑aligned assistance designed for the scale and complexity of enterprise IBM Z environments.

 Two purpose-built mainframe modes within Bob

The experience is delivered through purpose-built mainframe modes within Bob that align with how enterprise teams design, evolve and modernize Z applications:

 1. Architect mode

Architect mode enables system‑level reasoning across mainframe applications—helping teams understand application structure, dependencies, business intent and change impact before updates are made. By combining rich application metadata with multi‑model intelligence, it can deliver context‑aware, enterprise‑wide insights that can drive developer productivity, support confident planning and drive architectural decisions aligned to business value.

2. Code mode

Code mode performs complex, time‑intensive development tasks by leveraging intelligent partners and automated workflows to drive fast and efficient outcomes. It generates, refactors and transforms standards‑aligned code using Z‑aware context, then helps optimize, debug and improve quality through prioritized insights and automated issue resolution, helping to reduce technical debt, risk and time to delivery.

Participate in the tech preview

A no-cost, private technical preview of the IBM Bob Premium Package for Z is now available. Clients can request access by completing the steps below. Once accepted, clients will receive a confirmation email with access to the required extensions.(Engage with their IBM Sales team and request access here.)

Source: IBM

Kyndryl to modernize systems for North Carolina DMV

Kyndryl has announced that it has been selected by the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles (NCDMV) for a contract to upgrade its core motor vehicle systems. The initiative aims to significantly reduce customer wait times and expand online access to essential DMV services statewide.

NCDMV is undertaking a comprehensive effort to replace its COBOL-based systems with a modernized platform as a significant part of an overall digital transformation to better serve North Carolina residents. The enhanced NCDMV environment hosted on Microsoft Azure supports faster, more resilient operations and future enhancements, while helping to meet rising driver expectations for reliable and user-friendly services.

“Departments of motor vehicles provide essential services that people rely on every day, and the technology behind those services must be reliable and built to evolve,” said James Rutledge, President, Kyndryl U.S. “By applying our experience modernizing complex, mission-critical environments, we are helping NCDMV build a more resilient foundation that improves everyday experiences and supports better service delivery for residents today and long into the future.”

NCDMV’s new environment will support faster in-office transactions, expanded online services and improved customer engagement. The new system is part of NCDMV’s strategic plan to increase self-service options, such as mobile driver license applications and renewals, reduce customer wait times and accelerate staff onboarding. Kyndryl is also helping to build an NCDMV Mobile App and Digital Wallet for payments, renewals, appointments and alerts.

NCDMV selected Kyndryl based on its proven experience modernizing departments of motor vehicles across the United States. In large-scale initiatives in Arizona and Virginia, Kyndryl has helped agencies improve system reliability, enhance security and deliver more efficient, customer-focused services.

Souce: Kyndryl

AI Helped a Company Transition Off the Mainframe – and the Project Won an Award

Deluxe Corporation has earned a spot on the 2026 CIO 100 list, marking the company’s third recognition since 2024 for technology-driven business transformation. This year’s award recognized Deluxe’s successful migration from a decades-old mainframe environment to a modern AI-enabled, cloud-native infrastructure. 

The effort succeeded where an earlier decommissioning attempt in the early 2000s failed due to undocumented systems and limited institutional expertise.

Led by Chief Technology & Digital Officer Yogaraj Jayaprakasam, the initiative used agentic AI tools from OpenAI, Anthropic, and GitHub to accelerate code conversion, automate testing, and streamline workflows. Deluxe positioned the project as a practical application of AI focused on solving operational problems rather than chasing hype.

The modernization effort supports infrastructure responsible for processing more than $2 trillion in annual payment transactions. Deluxe reported several measurable outcomes from the migration, including:

• $3.2 million in annual operating expense savings
• $1.7 million in additional recurring cost reductions
• $1.6 million in one-time cost avoidance
• 40–50% improvement in development productivity
• Zero reported post-production defects
• Expanded automation, real-time insights, and self-service capabilities

For the mainframe industry, the project reflects a broader trend toward AI-assisted modernization. Rather than replacing technical expertise, AI is increasingly helping organizations tackle undocumented legacy environments, accelerate migration timelines, and reduce the operational risk traditionally associated with large-scale modernization efforts.

Source: BusinessWire

Kyndryl named a Leader in 2026 ISG Provider Lens™ Mainframes – Services and Solutions

Kyndryl has announced that it has been recognized as a Leader in three categories in the 2026 ISG Provider Lens™ Mainframes — Services and Solutions Report, including Mainframe Technology Consulting, Mainframe as a Service (MFaaS) and Application Modernization Services.

The ISG recognition underscores Kyndryl’s expertise supporting mission-critical mainframe environments and its commitment to delivering modernization built on security and governance, supported by automation, AIOps and AI‑enabled discovery. It also reflects the company’s continued investment in workforce development, ecosystem partnerships and resilient modernization pathways for regulated industries.

“Kyndryl’s comprehensive mainframe consulting service enables it to support discrete projects and multi-year transformations, addressing both infrastructure and applications across various hosting models,” said Pedro L. Bicudo Maschio, ISG distinguished analyst and author. He added that Kyndryl’s MFaaS and agentic-AI capabilities offer customers predictable economics, operational agility and modernization readiness.

“ISG’s recognition reinforces what we’re hearing from customers: they want to modernize mainframe environments without compromising resilience,” said Shawn D’Souza, SVP, Global Digital Consult Leader, Kyndryl. “At Kyndryl, we combine deep mainframe expertise with AI-enabled insights, strong governance, and ecosystem partnerships to help customers integrate and modernize responsibly across hybrid cloud environments.”

ISG recognized Kyndryl in the following areas:

• Leader in Mainframe Technology Consulting: ISG cited the company’s strategy and assessment-led approach, targeted optimization, and hybrid cloud integration focus, supported by Kyndryl Bridge and agentic AI-enabled automated discovery and operational insights.
• Leader in the Mainframe as a Service quadrant: ISG recognized Kyndryl for operating a large global MFaaS and mainframe outsourcing footprint. The report highlighted Kyndryl’s flexible consumption models, ranging from customer-owned environments to shared platforms like zCloud and C4i, and its continued investment in AI-driven autonomy, observability and IBM Z modernization aligned with customer resiliency and scalability needs.
• Leader in Application Modernization Services: ISG highlighted the company’s end-to-end modernization approach — from structured assessments and iterative implementation to hybrid cloud integration — enabled by Kyndryl Bridge and its agentic AI and governance capabilities, alongside strong hyperscaler alliances.

Source: Kyndryl