look I get it taking creaky old applications and finding ways to modernize them does not sound like the most enthralling topic but you clicked on this video and I'm so glad you did because generative AI is revolutionizing what is possible in the field of application modernization and I'm going to show you six ways in this table how generative AI can bring old applications into the modern world and the great thing is it's generative AI rather than you that does a bunch of the heavy lifting so first let's define some terms and we'll start with application
modernization now this is about bringing Legacy applications up to speed to meet current and future needs it's the process of updating traditional functionality to incorporate modern Technologies modern capabilities and modern architectures and look Legacy applications have powered businesses for decades they are generally resilient and reliable no bad thing but as it evolves integrating newer Technologies can amplify their strengths and address areas that might benefit from Modern enhancements and in a study conducted by the IBM Institute for business value 83 percent of Executives said modernizing applications and data is Central to their organization's business strategies so
this is clearly a Hot Topic another term I want to Define is generative Ai and I rather suspect you're quite familiar with this term already it refers to a subset of artificial intelligence where the system is trained to generate new content now this could be in the form of images and text but it can also be the generation of code and software functionalities generative AI can produce output that wasn't explicitly part of its training data set which makes it a really powerful tool so I think it's pretty clear that combining these two things is something
that is gaining interest and that same ibv study reported that 89 of c-suite execs agreed that generative AI in app modernization projects will drive growth by improving existing products and services but how well let's take a look at six examples it's not an exhaustive list by any means but I hope you'll find one or two things of interest to you here and let me first caveat this by saying that generative AI is not a Magic Bullet and it's not infallible it's always wise to double check its outputs and make adjustments as needed all right think
the the lawyers should be happy so let's get going and first up is code generation now if you've ever found yourself spending hours coding basic modules or structures over and over again it can get a tad monotonous but by understanding the requirements or established patterns generative AI can churn out code Snippets or even entire modules for example let's say you're in charge of building a data processing system that involves connecting with a multitude of API endpoints for different functionalities generative AI can be shown the pattern or structure of these endpoints and in turn can Auto
generate the required code all right that's Cogen now next have you ever looked at an ancient piece of software scratched your head and thought what in the world does this do I have in my first professional job I was working with Cable billing code written in RPG that was older than I was enter reverse engineering with its ability to analyze and understand code structures and their behaviors generative AI assists in recreating or modernizing the existing systems and applications even if the original source code is lost so consider a legacy CRM system perhaps it's built like
in the late 90s it's integral to a company's operations but is now riddled with inefficiencies the original developers have moved on and the documentation is let's just call it sparse well generative AI can dive into this system identify its various operations and with a bit of assistance generate a modern equivalent of the software another capability is in the area of best practices now let's face it keeping up with the best way to do things can feel like trying to hit a moving Target sometimes so wouldn't it be great if as you code somebody like Taps
you on the shoulder and provides recommendations well generative AI can be that insightful colleague by analyzing vast data sets repositories and patterns generative AI can proactively suggest coding or architectural best practices pretty handy now while we're on the subject of making our lives easier let's delve into the realm of Auto healing systems now a big challenge during application application modernization is really managing and reducing something called technical debt so as applications evolve earlier shortcuts and patches and workarounds all remnants of historical decisions made from back in the day can become ticking time bombs leading to
unpredictable Behavior or system vulnerabilities generative AI Auto healing systems can actively monitor the modernized application identifying and rectifying Legacy inefficiencies or issues that arise due to the older code all right two more next one is context sensitive context sensitive automation and what do we mean by that well look application modernization isn't just about tweaking Legacy code we're reshaping entire systems here so we're talking about things like transitioning to Cloud platforms and incorporating devops and generative AI can bring context sensitive automation where it doesn't just blindly apply automations it discerns the context like understanding whether it's
working within a containerized environment or interfacing with a decades-old database this awareness ensures that the automation it applies be it being code migration or infrastructure setup or user experience optimization is apt for the situation and then finally we've got code debugging debugging that's a Time intensive process at the best of times but throwing interfacing old code with new tech things don't exactly get any easier fortunately generative AI can analyze code structures system interactions and even user behaviors to quickly identify bugs bottlenecks or potential areas of improvement now there are a bunch more I wanted to
include but heck this table has only got so many cells code refactoring would have been another one documentation generation I'd probably had that on my list as well now do keep in mind it's early days these capabilities are still maturing still if if nothing else I hope I've piqued your interest in exploring how generative AI can help as a transformative force in the app modernization space it's not just about updating old software but Reinventing it ensuring it's adaptable efficient and ready for the future
