Podcast ¦ Punk CX: How Vodafone, Rabobank and others are driving meaningful results with AI – Interview with Matt Healy of Pega

Key Take Aways

1. Legacy system debt remains a critical challenge for large enterprises, costing an average of $370 million annually across operational, infrastructural, and hidden expenses.
2. Not all legacy systems need to be retired; a nuanced strategy is essential, recognising the value of existing core systems like mainframes, particularly where they deliver stable, time-tested performance.
3. AI-enabled automation can significantly accelerate legacy transformation projects, reducing typical durations from years to weeks or months.
4. Speech-driven document analysis, digital workflows, and process extraction through AI tools can revitalise ageing systems without complete replacement.
5. Organisations should focus on understanding their current operational inventories, especially those that have emerged during mergers or acquisitions, to identify actionable opportunities for automation.
6. The application of generative AI in blueprints and architecture design reduces dependencies on lengthy requirements gathering and documentation processes.
7. AI agents can interpret various data sources—process diagrams, data models, system documentation—to automate and streamline legacy system understanding.
8. Creating structured, governed AI frameworks for process automation enhances trust and consistency, crucial for regulated industries.
9. Selecting tools based on the specific role in the customer or employee journey—from automation to human touchpoints—is key to effective AI deployment.
10. Differentiation in AI application is achieved by integrating these tools into end-to-end workflows guided by strategic process design.
11. Continuous process improvement can be facilitated through AI-driven process mining and real-time bottleneck analysis, enabling organisations to adopt autonomous, self-healing systems.
12. Success stories, such as the Swedish employment agency delivering new workflows in under 40 days, exemplify tangible benefits in citizen service via adopting AI-enabled transformation.

Key Statistics

• Large enterprises spend an estimated $370 million annually on legacy debt.
• 70% of Fortune 500 organisations still utilise mainframes.
• 70% of monetisation efforts in legacy system transformation fail, mainly due to long project timelines and unclear understanding of existing systems.
• 85% of code within legacy systems, such as those built on ageing platforms, is often unused.
• Deploying new workflows for organisations like Vodafone has been achieved within 40 hours, with automation deployments completed within a week.

Key Discussion Points

• The often overlooked impact and scale of legacy debt within large enterprises and its real costs.
• The importance of strategic, rather than blanket, approach to legacy system modernisation.
• How AI can drastically reduce legacy transformation times and costs by automating code and process understanding.
• The role of AI agents in interpreting diverse data sources such as diagram models, documentation, and even videos.
• Significance of tailoring legacy system analysis methods, including analysing source code platforms like those from AWS, Capgemini, and Accenture.
• The evolving nature of AI applications—from runtime automation to design-time application development.
• The importance of maintaining control, governance, and auditability in AI-driven processes, especially in regulated sectors.
• The necessity of choosing the right AI tools and approaches for specific business processes, rather than a one-size-fits-all mentality.
• The shift from traditional process automation to continuous, autonomous process optimisation, including real-time bottleneck detection.
• The concept of the autonomous enterprise as an organisation capable of self-healing and continuous evolution.
• How successful organisations are deeply aligning AI initiatives with core operational processes, focusing on tangible, scalable value.
• The need for organisations to understand and leverage their existing IP in cultivating AI-driven differentiation.

Podcast Description

This podcast explores how leading enterprises are leveraging AI and automation to modernise legacy systems, improve operational agility, and enhance customer and employee experiences. It features insights from industry experts on the strategic application of AI agents for legacy transformation, process optimisation, and scalable automation. The discussion covers a range of topics including rapid system modernisation, governance of AI solutions in regulated environments, and best practices for deploying AI at scale for transformational impact. Ideal for senior managers in financial services and other regulated sectors, it offers practical insights on harnessing AI to future-proof operations and deliver sustainable competitive advantage.