IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Ejada Systems, a Saudi-based digital transformation leader and IBM Business Partner, today announced the results of a joint modernization initiative applying IBM Bob, IBM’s agentic software engineering platform, to support modernization across live enterprise environments.
Conducted across sectors including government, financial services, and telecommunications, the project explored how AI-assisted engineering can help organizations modernize complex systems more efficiently while maintaining governance and oversight. It was evaluated across four live enterprise engineering use cases, demonstrating measurable gains across discovery, documentation, Java modernization, and code and test generation workflows.
The project identified measurable improvements across modernization delivery, including up to a 40% reduction in discovery effort and compression of analysis timelines from weeks to days. IBM Bob also demonstrated strong results across multiple modernization workflows, achieving up to 95% effectiveness in reverse engineering, 90% in architecture documentation and 80% in Java modernization, while providing a strong foundation to accelerate code and test generation workflows with developer validation.
By reducing manual effort in early-stage discovery and documentation, it helped improve delivery predictability through more standardized outputs and allowed engineering teams to redirect capacity toward higher-value activities such as validation, integration, and design.
Many organizations across Saudi Arabia continue to rely on established technologies, including Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL) – based applications and tightly integrated systems that support critical operations. Modernizing these environments often requires extensive manual analysis before transformation work can begin, increasing costs, extending timelines, and creating dependency on limited expertise.
“These findings demonstrate that AI is a practical capability for enterprise transformation,” said Ayman AlRashed, Regional Vice President, IBM. “Through our collaboration with Ejada Systems and the application of IBM Bob, organizations can modernize critical systems faster while maintaining the rigor required in regulated industries.”
According to the findings, IBM Bob helped reduce time-intensive discovery and analysis processes while improving consistency across modernization workflows. The platform applies AI-assisted engineering across multiple stages of the software development lifecycle, helping teams accelerate modernization while maintaining developer control and governance.
“Our collaboration with IBM combines advanced AI capabilities with deep expertise in delivering large-scale enterprise transformation initiatives,” said Mohamed Abd Al Moneim, Chief Enterprise, Cloud & Cybersecurity, Ejada Systems. “Through Ejada’s extensive experience supporting government entities, financial institutions, and other critical sectors, we help organizations modernize mission-critical systems more efficiently, accelerate transformation journeys, maintain strong governance, and achieve measurable business outcomes.”
Leveraging its experience supporting modernization and transformation initiatives across government, financial services, telecommunications, and other critical sectors, Ejada collaborated with IBM to evaluate how AI-assisted engineering can be applied within enterprise environments while maintaining governance and delivery standards.
A key focus of the project was understanding and documenting critical systems faster. IBM Bob was applied to COBOL applications, embedded SQL, and related system artifacts to help identify business rules, map data flows, document system interactions, and generate structured outputs for analyst review.
The findings show that tasks traditionally requiring weeks of manual analysis can be significantly accelerated, with outputs requiring light review and limited refinement before use. It also showed how IBM Bob can help teams create clear system and architecture documentation faster, giving analysts and developers a stronger starting point for review.
“The opportunity is not only in applying AI to software engineering, but in enabling organizations to modernize complex enterprise environments with greater speed, consistency, and confidence,” said Amr Mourad, Senior Solution Architect at Ejada Systems. “Our experience shows that organizations can accelerate modernization efforts, improve productivity, and maintain governance when AI is embedded within structured engineering and delivery models.”
The collaboration demonstrated how AI-assisted engineering can support modernization across the software development lifecycle, from system discovery and architecture documentation to code modernization with developer validation. Ejada’s experience shows how these capabilities can further support large-scale modernization programs, where accuracy, traceability, and speed are critical.
IBM is also applying Bob within its own organization. More than 80,000 IBM employees are using IBM Bob, with surveyed users reporting an average 45% productivity gain across software tasks including modernization, security, and new development. IBM teams have also reported significant time savings in areas such as code generation, refactoring, and selected development tasks.
This collaboration highlights IBM and Ejada’s shared commitment to supporting Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 by helping organizations modernize critical systems and accelerate digital transformation initiatives. As organizations continue to advance large-scale transformation programs, the ability to modernize legacy environments more efficiently is becoming increasingly important. By reducing the time and effort associated with modernizing critical systems, AI-assisted engineering can help organizations improve operational efficiency, reduce complexity, and transition more effectively to modern, cloud-enabled environments.
