Making the AI-powered case for legacy modernization

以人工智能驱动旧系统现代化：商业案例分析

For years, legacy technology has been a problem companies knew they needed to solve, but one they often struggled to tackle. The cost, complexity, and risk of replacing business-critical systems could make modernization feel like a disruption to manage instead of an opportunity to pursue. But with the rise in customer expectations and the changes AI brought to the economics of software development, that calculation is changing. 多年来，旧技术一直是企业深知必须解决却又难以着手的问题。更换关键业务系统的成本、复杂性和风险，往往让现代化改造看起来更像是一场需要应对的“干扰”，而非值得追求的“机遇”。然而，随着客户期望的提高以及人工智能对软件开发经济性的改变，这一考量正在发生变化。

Bupa’s modernization of its My Bupa mobile application offers a case study in what becomes possible when a legacy migration is treated as a business transformation rather than a technology rewrite. Bupa CIO of health insurance Asifa Sherazi describes the risks of waiting for legacy systems to become an emergency: “The end-of-life technology is a risk that compounds quietly, and then arrives all at once.” Bupa 对其“My Bupa”移动应用程序的现代化改造提供了一个案例研究：当我们将旧系统迁移视为一场“业务转型”而非单纯的“技术重写”时，一切皆有可能。Bupa 健康保险首席信息官 Asifa Sherazi 描述了等待旧系统演变成紧急状况的风险：“技术生命周期的终结是一种悄然累积的风险，一旦爆发，便会接踵而至。”

For Bupa, moving its application from Xamarin to native Swift and Kotlin improved the app rating from 3.7 to 4.7, while the user-perceived crash rate fell by nearly 24 percentage points on Android and eight points on iOS. “What they’ll notice is that when they need us, often at a stressful moment, it just simply works,” Sherazi says. 对于 Bupa 而言，将其应用程序从 Xamarin 迁移到原生的 Swift 和 Kotlin 后，应用评分从 3.7 分提升至 4.7 分，同时用户感知的崩溃率在 Android 平台上下降了近 24 个百分点，在 iOS 平台上下降了 8 个百分点。Sherazi 表示：“用户会注意到，当他们需要我们时——通常是在压力较大的时刻——系统能够顺畅运行。”

Sanjeev Tripathi, senior vice president and region head of BFSI, healthcare, and public sector for Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia at Infosys, contends that AI is helping change the equation. “The emergence of AI is fundamentally shifting the economics of modernization,” he says, reducing the effort, risk, and time traditionally associated with these programs. Infosys 负责澳大利亚、新西兰及东南亚地区 BFSI（银行、金融服务与保险）、医疗保健和公共部门的高级副总裁兼区域主管 Sanjeev Tripathi 认为，人工智能正在改变这一等式。他说：“人工智能的出现从根本上改变了现代化的经济性”，降低了传统此类项目所涉及的工作量、风险和时间成本。

At Bupa, combining AI-assisted reverse engineering with forward engineering helped deliver the transformation in approximately 60% less time than would have been possible in the pre-AI era. Sherazi and Tripathi also highlight the human dimension of modernization: preserving institutional knowledge, giving teams capacity to adapt, and creating an environment where employees can surface problems early. 在 Bupa，通过将人工智能辅助的逆向工程与正向工程相结合，该转型项目所耗费的时间比人工智能时代之前缩短了约 60%。Sherazi 和 Tripathi 还强调了现代化改造中的“人文维度”：即保留机构知识、赋予团队适应能力，并创造一个让员工能够及早发现问题的环境。

Looking ahead, both experts see modernized platforms as foundations for more personalized, predictive and AI-driven experiences. The payoff of modernization may be less about replacing aging technology and more about building the flexibility needed for whatever comes next. 展望未来，两位专家都认为，现代化的平台是实现更个性化、预测性及人工智能驱动体验的基础。现代化改造的回报或许不在于更换老旧技术，而在于为应对未来的任何挑战构建所需的灵活性。

“Modern platforms will become the base for far more intelligent AI-driven ecosystems, where AI is not just an add-on, but it is built into everything from design to operations. That’s how the modern platforms will evolve, and the customer experiences will become far more personalized and predictive,” says Tripathi. Tripathi 表示：“现代平台将成为更智能的人工智能驱动生态系统的基石，人工智能不再仅仅是一个附加组件，而是融入了从设计到运营的每一个环节。这就是现代平台的演进方式，客户体验也将变得更加个性化和具有预测性。”

For Sherazi, that shift is already changing the questions organizations can ask: “It used to be, can our platform support that? Now, it’s: is that the right thing to do for our customers?” 对于 Sherazi 而言，这种转变已经改变了组织思考问题的方式：“过去我们问的是：我们的平台能支持吗？现在我们问的是：这对我们的客户来说是正确的做法吗？”