AI-powered application and legacy modernization on AWS
Cloud migration is a critical step in digital transformation, but moving legacy systems to the cloud is only part of the journey. Real business value comes when organizations modernize what runs on that foundation: the applications, codebases, architectures, testing practices and engineering workflows that determine how quickly the business can innovate.
Publicis Sapient helps enterprises bridge that gap. By combining secure, scalable AWS foundations with AI-powered modernization approaches, we enable organizations to move beyond rehosting legacy systems and toward meaningful application transformation. The result is faster modernization, lower cost, stronger traceability, improved maintainability and a more practical path from cloud investment to business impact.
Cloud infrastructure is the foundation. Modernization is the multiplier.
AWS gives enterprises the flexibility, resilience and scale needed to support long-term transformation. Publicis Sapient helps clients build that foundation through cloud strategy, migration, architecture, security and managed services. But cloud infrastructure alone does not automatically remove the barriers created by legacy applications.
Many organizations still face the same constraints after migration: aging code, limited documentation, brittle architectures, scarce legacy skills, slow change cycles and high maintenance costs. In that state, the cloud can become a better place to host old problems rather than a platform for new value.
That is why application modernization matters. Once the AWS foundation is in place, enterprises can start transforming the technology estate itself to improve agility, support modern engineering practices and unlock the full value of cloud adoption.
Why legacy modernization remains difficult
For many enterprises, the challenge is not just technical debt. It is the combination of technical complexity, business risk and delivery pressure. Legacy environments are often poorly documented, tightly coupled and dependent on specialized skills that are increasingly difficult to find. Traditional modernization approaches can be slow, expensive and hard to scale across large application portfolios.
Organizations need a way to accelerate analysis, reduce manual effort and modernize with greater confidence. They also need better visibility into how legacy functionality maps to future-state applications, especially in regulated or mission-critical environments.
Publicis Sapient addresses these challenges with AI-enabled modernization supported by human intervention, engineering expertise and AWS-native scale.
AI-assisted modernization built for enterprise outcomes
Publicis Sapient uses AI to amplify developer productivity and accelerate modernization across the software lifecycle. By applying large language models, contextual enterprise knowledge and pre-built prompt libraries, our teams can understand legacy code faster, generate future-state documentation, support code transformation and automate testing activities.
This approach helps enterprises modernize more efficiently across several critical areas:
- Code comprehension and transformation to analyze existing applications and transition them toward modern architectures
- Documentation generation to create feature summaries, specifications and clearer visibility into legacy functionality
- Traceability support to connect current-state code and requirements to transformed outputs
- Test acceleration through generated test cases, unit tests and automation test scripts
- Developer productivity gains that reduce manual effort and help teams move faster with more confidence
Rather than relying on AI as a black box, Publicis Sapient combines AI with human oversight to improve quality, control and relevance in enterprise environments.
From legacy code to modern software with Sapient Slingshot and Bodhi
Publicis Sapient’s platform approach is central to this work. Sapient Bodhi is our enterprise-ready AI platform built on AWS, designed for speed, scale and security. It helps organizations deploy and scale AI use cases with the orchestration, governance and enterprise safeguards needed for production environments. Across workflows such as search, analytics, forecasting, personalization, compliance and automation, Bodhi provides the AI foundation to move from experimentation to measurable outcomes.
Built off Bodhi, Sapient Slingshot is Publicis Sapient’s AI-powered platform for legacy modernization and software development lifecycle acceleration. It modernizes legacy systems by turning existing code into verified specifications and generating modern software with full traceability. This is a powerful advantage for organizations that need to transform not just infrastructure, but the underlying application estate itself.
Together, Bodhi and Sapient Slingshot help enterprises accelerate application and legacy modernization on AWS while maintaining alignment between business requirements, technical implementation and delivery quality.
The business case for combining AWS and AI-powered modernization
When enterprises combine AWS cloud foundations with AI-assisted modernization, the benefits extend far beyond migration.
Reduced modernization cost
Modernization has historically been expensive because it depends on manual code analysis, documentation and testing. Publicis Sapient’s AI-enabled approach reduces that burden and helps organizations modernize more cost-effectively. In analysis of more than 100 end-to-end experiments using generative AI modernization accelerators in combination with Bodhi, GPT, PSChat and AWS solutions, Publicis Sapient recorded a reduction in modernization costs of more than 50 percent.
Faster migration and modernization speed
Cloud migration creates readiness, but AI-powered modernization accelerates what happens next. Publicis Sapient’s measured outcomes show a 50 percent increase in migration speed in experimental analysis, while a leading benefits provider achieved 3x faster migration and reduced effort through AI.
Better traceability and clarity
One of the hardest parts of legacy modernization is understanding what the system actually does and preserving that intent during transformation. Publicis Sapient helps turn legacy code into functional specifications and verified requirements artifacts, improving traceability from legacy behavior to modern implementation.
Automated testing support
Testing is often one of the largest bottlenecks in modernization programs. Publicis Sapient uses AI to generate test cases, unit tests and automation scripts that help validate transformed applications faster. This supports broader coverage, more reliable releases and reduced manual testing effort.
Improved maintainability and quality
Modernization should not only move applications to a new environment; it should make them easier to change and enhance over time. Publicis Sapient’s approach helps create code and architectures that are easier to maintain in a modern tech stack. Across its experimental analysis, Publicis Sapient also recorded 50 percent fewer defects along with significantly expanded coverage of requirements and test cases.
A modernization approach aligned to business transformation
Publicis Sapient approaches AWS transformation through SPEED: Strategy, Product, Experience, Engineering and Data & AI. That means modernization is not treated as a narrow technical exercise. It is aligned to business priorities, operating realities and the future experiences organizations want to create.
This matters because modernization only succeeds when infrastructure, applications and business goals move together. AWS provides the cloud services, scalability and security needed to support the transformation. Publicis Sapient adds the strategy, engineering depth and AI-powered platforms needed to accelerate change across the application estate.
With more than 5,000 professionals experienced and trained in AWS and services delivered to more than 150 clients across major industries, Publicis Sapient brings both cloud foundation expertise and modernization capability to the same journey.
Turning cloud investment into application-level change
The most valuable infrastructure transformation is the kind that unlocks application transformation. Enterprises do not modernize to simply run old systems somewhere new. They modernize to improve agility, reduce cost, accelerate delivery and create room for innovation.
Publicis Sapient helps make that possible by combining AWS cloud infrastructure with AI-powered application and legacy modernization. With Bodhi, Sapient Slingshot and deep end-to-end transformation expertise, we help organizations turn legacy constraints into a scalable path forward—one where cloud readiness leads to faster modernization outcomes, and modernization leads to meaningful business results.
If your AWS foundation is in place, the next question is not whether you can host legacy systems in the cloud. It is how quickly you can transform them into modern platforms for growth.