Kyndryl has announced a significant enhancement in its managed services for IBM Z mainframe customers by introducing new AI-powered capabilities that integrate the company's extensive mainframe expertise with cutting-edge agentic AI and hybrid IT computing technologies. These advancements aim to accelerate application and solutions development, boost operational agility, and unlock innovative business insights by expanding the use of AI on the IBM z/OS platform.

The new services employ agentic AI to streamline complex processes related to application and infrastructure management, enabling smarter decision-making and faster, proactive issue resolution. According to Hassan Zamat, Global Practice Leader for Core Enterprise & zCloud at Kyndryl, the company is committed to melding skilled delivery practitioners with agentic AI to provide unique and effective solutions, reinforcing the mainframe's critical role as an innovation engine for global enterprises.

These AI-driven capabilities are embedded within Kyndryl’s open integration platform, Kyndryl Bridge, which delivers intelligent automation, predictive analytics, and real-time insights across mainframe systems. Additionally, Kyndryl is deploying IBM watsonx Assistant for Z and partnering with other AI ecosystem platforms to enhance orchestration, lifecycle management, and intelligent automation. Kyndryl's AI Assistant for Z serves as a knowledge repository blending decades of mainframe experience to assist with skills development and retention challenges, an important consideration given that a recent Kyndryl survey found 70% of organisations struggle to find the right multi-skilled talent in this domain.

Kyndryl’s approach also leverages intellectual property and collaborates with cloud hyperscalers and global partners to drive mainframe transformation. These initiatives bring AI inferencing closer to mainframe data, reducing latency and enhancing performance in key applications such as real-time fraud detection, insurance claims processing, and customer buying pattern analysis. Reflecting this, their 2025 State of Mainframe Modernization Survey indicated that 88% of respondents have implemented or plan to implement AI, including agentic and generative AI, within their mainframe environments, with expected benefits including business agility, reduced human error, and cost savings projected to reach $12.7 billion alongside $19.5 billion in increased revenues over the next three years.

Beyond the immediate AI enhancements, Kyndryl also offers hyperscaler integration services that unify mainframe and cloud ecosystems. This enables agile application, data, and network integration while maintaining secure interconnections, facilitating a robust DevOps infrastructure that supports digital transformation efforts. Further accelerating modernization, Kyndryl has introduced advisory and implementation services that harness AWS's agentic AI capabilities to migrate and modernize mainframe applications seamlessly, improving software development lifecycles and enhancing the developer experience.

Kyndryl's expanded partnership with Google Cloud underscores its strategy to combine deep mainframe expertise with generative AI technologies from Google’s AI and Gemini models. This collaboration provides enterprises with trusted avenues to modernize legacy mainframe applications, increase operational agility, and foster cloud-native innovation.

From an industry perspective, this evolution underscores a critical juncture where legacy mainframe platforms are being reinvigorated through AI, blending traditional strengths in reliability and security with modern needs for agility, speed, and insight. However, realising these benefits will require navigating talent gaps, integrating diverse technologies, and ensuring seamless orchestration across hybrid environments, a challenge Kyndryl’s new services aim to address.

In summary, Kyndryl is positioning itself at the forefront of mainframe innovation by embedding agentic AI into managed services, offering clients enhanced operational resilience, faster decision-making, and a clear competitive advantage in leveraging mainframe technology as a foundation for digital transformation.

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Source: Noah Wire Services