Kyndryl has introduced its Agentic Modernization services-as-software, built using the Kyndryl Agentic AI Framework and scaled through Kyndryl Bridge. The offering is designed to help enterprises modernise ageing technology environments in shorter timelines, at lower cost and with less reliance on scarce specialised skills, positioning modernisation as a continuous discipline rather than a large, episodic project.

Services-as-software is an emerging delivery model built on software-driven automation, intelligence and scalable digital workflows. Kyndryl has codified its mission-critical and engineering expertise, together with capabilities from AI ecosystem partners, into pre-defined agentic workflows intended to help customers de-risk and accelerate modernisation while maintaining enterprise guardrails and cost visibility.

“Modernization is becoming an operating discipline rather than a series of labor-intensive transformation programs that are difficult to scale and disruption-prone. As technology innovation accelerates exponentially, organizations need to move toward continuous modernization so they can adapt faster to changing business needs. With Agentic Modernization services-as-software, customers can transform iteratively and seamlessly using proven agentic workflows designed to handle changing business priorities and built on Kyndryl’s deep mission-critical expertise and industrialized through Kyndryl Bridge, enabling faster execution and more predictable outcomes,” said Ismail Amla, Senior Vice President, Kyndryl Consult.

AI Value Gap Drives the Modernisation Push

The launch comes as organisations race to scale AI but struggle to realise business value from their investments. A recent Kyndryl survey of 1,100 business and technology leaders found that while 77% of executives say generative AI has already been scaled across multiple functions of their organisation, only 32% report experiencing one of their top desired outcomes. Kyndryl argues that modernisation is the prerequisite foundation, since organisations cannot reliably adopt AI on ageing technology estates.

• 77% of executives say generative AI has been scaled across multiple functions
• Only 32% report experiencing one of their top desired outcomes from that investment
• Kyndryl Bridge generates more than 16 million AI insights each month
• Kyndryl Bridge has demonstrated a reduction in IT incidents by up to 50%

“Agentic AI is reshaping how enterprises think about modernization, moving the conversation from large, episodic transformation projects to continuous, agent-orchestrated implementations guided by human expertise. Kyndryl’s Agentic Modernization services-as-software, with Kyndryl Bridge as the foundation, reflects that shift, combining pre-defined AI workflows and operational expertise, critically with the governance and guardrails needed to enable organizations to modernize with greater speed and consistency by reducing indecision and complexity traps,” said Bill Latshaw, Research Director, Worldwide Business Consulting Services, IDC.

Early Results Across Mainframe and Legacy Estates

Kyndryl’s pre-defined agentic workflows are designed to accelerate labour-intensive modernisation activities such as discovery, code analysis, dependency mapping, code generation, testing and validation, while Kyndryl experts and customer teams remain central to providing human oversight, governance and accountability.

• A global reinsurer used the approach to modernise a decades-old mainframe environment with millions of lines of code, reducing its data centre exit timeline by 50%
• A global car rental company applied agentic modernisation to legacy code refactoring, cutting work that previously required hours of manual effort down to minutes
• A global financial services organisation has deployed the services-as-software approach across its engineering teams worldwide

The approach also allows customers to adopt new frontier models and tools as they become available based on business requirements, cost, performance and governance needs, without locking them into a specific technology stack. Kyndryl Bridge, launched in 2022, is now the foundation for managing and modernising mission-critical and regulated technology environments for more than 1,400 customers, providing agentic memory management to help preserve institutional knowledge and operational context across continuous modernisation cycles.