Kyndryl adds agentic tools for the mainframe

Dive Brief: 

• Kyndryl is adding AI capabilities to its mainframe services, including agentic AI, the company said in a Monday announcement. 
• The IT services provider’s new agentic mainframe services aim to provide customers with faster issue resolution, improved reliability and software lifecycle compliance. The tools help address skills gaps and accelerate response times to emerging threats. 
• “We are committed to combining the power of our skilled delivery practitioners with agentic AI to provide differentiated experiences and outcomes to help drive growth for our customers,” Hassan Zamat, global practice leader for core enterprise and zCloud at Kyndryl, said in the announcement. 

Dive Insight:

Enterprise IT companies, hyperscalers and other service providers have deployed new AI technologies, including generative AI and AI agents, to improve and modernize mainframe services. 

Rocket Software launched modernization services, including a plain language coding assistant, earlier this year. Meanwhile, AWS created its agentic AI platform AWS Transform to help businesses upgrade mainframe workloads and other legacy implementations. 

Nearly four in five IT executives agree that mainframes are critical for enabling AI innovation and value creation, according to an IBM Institute for Business Value report. Another 78% said their organization is either piloting or launching projects adding AI capabilities to mainframe applications, the report said. 

Kyndryl also found most business leaders are turning to AI, with 88% of respondents to its 2025 State of Mainframe Modernization Survey stating they have implemented or plan to implement AI —  including agentic and generative — in their mainframe environments. Improving business agility, reducing human error and saving money are the key driving forces behind accelerated use of AI in mainframe workloads, according to Kyndryl.

Kyndryl’s agentic AI-powered mainframe delivery services can be combined with agentic ingestion capabilities within Kyndryl’s Agentic AI Framework to enable better orchestration of agents and workflows, the announcement said. 

The company is also deploying IBM watsonX Assistant for Z to further transform mainframe delivery for customers by enabling intelligent automation and lifecycle management. The services also include Kyndryl AI Assistant for Z – which is integrated with open integration platform Kyndryl Bridge – to help customers address challenges with skills development and retention, the announcement said. 

The services will help IBM z/OS customers adopt AI-powered delivery of services, “speeding decision-making and simplifying complex processes across application and infrastructure management,” the announcement said. 

“Through our collaboration with Kyndryl, we’re helping enterprises bring powerful AI capabilities to the core systems that run their business,” Skyla Loomis, general manager of IBM Z Software, said in the announcement.