2024 will be a crucial year for the integration of AI into mainframe systems. This is highlighted by Kyndryl in its second annual survey, where it also reveals that despite the financial benefits that these modernization projects are bringing, many organizations still face a skills shortage that makes it difficult to transform complex and critical systems.

Companies face economic, competitive, technological and regulatory challenges as they seek to transform and extract new value from their IT infrastructures, including mainframes. The survey shows that 86% of respondents are rapidly adopting AI and generative AI to accelerate their mainframe modernization initiatives.

In Spain, this figure rises to 95%. Additionally, a third of respondents see the mainframe platform as critical to running AI-enabled workloads, and nearly half plan to use generative AI to transform critical data into actionable insights.

“The mainframe platform remains essential in today’s hybrid environment and is evolving for new uses, with AI and security increasingly influencing modernization plans. Kyndryl is leading this trend, offering critical expertise to help customers achieve their goals,” says Petra Goude, Global Practice Leader for Core Enterprise & zCloud at Kyndryl.

AI in mainframe systems

Respondents indicate that IT modernization projects are generating substantial business results, including a triple-digit return on investment (ROI) in one year, ranging between 114% and 225%, and a collective annual savings of 11,900 million dollars. Nearly all organizations have adopted a hybrid IT strategy, combining mainframe modernization with public/private cloud integration and off-platform migration of applications and data. Additionally, 96% of respondents are moving some workloads (36% on average) to the cloud.

Key factors driving mainframe investment in Spain

The study conducted by Coleman Parkes Research for Kyndryl, on the platform’s 60th anniversary, also analyzes the business factors that will influence investment decisions in mainframe modernization in the near term. In Spain, data security and modernization are the top priorities, followed by user demand, artificial intelligence (including generative AI) and changes in business demand.

Other important factors include sustainability, application modernization, rising costs, and regulatory compliance.

Visibility and key competencies

This year, respondents identified visibility as a crucial reason for undertaking technological modernization. 92% consider it important to have a single dashboard to monitor their operations, although 85% find it difficult to do it correctly. Kyndryl Bridge offers an AI-powered open integration platform that can solve this challenge, providing greater visibility, orchestration, and efficiency across all technology environments.

The survey also reveals that many respondents continue to face a skills shortage, especially in emerging areas such as generative AI. Security competencies are in high demand due to increased regulatory compliance requirements, and nearly all respondents point to security as a key factor in modernization decisions. Faced with this pressure, 77% of organizations are turning to external vendors to carry out mainframe modernization projects.