IBM: 78% of mainframe shops are piloting, operating AI apps

“Organizations should leverage AI to empower DevOps teams, enhance mainframe operations, and infuse AI into business transactions,” wrote Tina Tarquinio, vice president of product management, IBM Z and LinuxONE, in a blog about the study.

“This can be achieved by equipping developers with gen AI-assisted tools that accelerate application discovery, analysis, and modernization; improving operational functions with smart aids and next-generation chatbot assistants; and leveraging AI for in-transaction insights to enhance business use cases,” Tarquinio wrote.

Hybrid by design

The mainframe’s ability to be integrated with and modernized by cloud computing architectures is an integral part of its future role.

Most enterprises have built tech estates on hybrid cloud architecture, the researchers stated. “In fact, 91% of IT executives agree that their organization promotes hybrid architectures. With workloads distributed across cloud, mainframe, and edge assets, these environments are flexible, yet highly complex. When hybrid cloud is built piecemeal, or rather by default, it leads to fragmented systems, silos, higher costs and limited innovation opportunities,” the IBV study stated.

What IBM calls the mainframe’s “hybrid-by-design framework” meets these challenges by intentionally aligning hybrid cloud and digital transformation, the study found.

“Modernizing applications on mainframes to work seamlessly in a hybrid-by-design environment is crucial for digital transformation,” researchers stated. “In fact, 88% of executives consider this essential to long-term success, recognizing that simplifying and integrating information sharing and data access are vital to derive benefits from hybrid cloud environments. Combining on-premises mainframes with hyperscalers can create an integrated operating model that enables agile practices and interoperability between applications,” researchers stated.