Amazon just unleashed AI agents that can modernize any legacy code or application at enterprise scale. The new AWS Transform capabilities promise to cut modernization time by up to 5 times while slashing Windows licensing costs by 70%, directly targeting the tech debt that consumes 30% of most development teams' resources.
Amazon is betting big on AI agents to solve enterprise tech debt, and today's AWS Transform announcement shows exactly how they plan to win. The company just rolled out agentic capabilities that can automatically modernize legacy code across any programming language, framework, or even custom company systems - a massive expansion from its original Windows and mainframe focus.
The timing couldn't be better. According to Amazon's internal research, typical organizations burn 30% of their development resources on manual modernization work instead of building new features. That's a $2 trillion problem across the global enterprise software market, and Amazon wants to own the solution.
"AWS Transform has completely changed that," QAD CEO Sanjay Brahmawar told Amazon in a case study. The manufacturing software company now completes modernizations in three days instead of two weeks, driving 60-70% productivity gains and processing over 180,000 lines of legacy code with what Brahmawar calls "exceptional accuracy."
The new custom capabilities represent a significant leap beyond AWS Transform's original scope. Where the service previously focused on specific migration patterns like Windows .NET applications and mainframes, it now promises to handle "any code, API, framework, runtime, architecture, language, and even company-specific programming languages." That's enterprise software speak for "we'll modernize anything you throw at us."
Air Canada became an early proof point, deploying AWS Transform to modernize thousands of Lambda functions in just days. The airline achieved an 80% reduction in expected project time and cost compared to manual migration - exactly the kind of dramatic efficiency gain that gets C-suite attention during budget season.
But it's the Windows modernization story that could reshape enterprise IT spending. Amazon claims its agents can now accelerate full-stack Windows modernization by 5x across .NET apps, SQL Server databases, UI frameworks, and deployment layers. More importantly, it promises to cut operating costs by up to 70% by eliminating expensive Microsoft licensing agreements.
