AI is rewriting the modernization playbook.
Over the past few years, AI has changed software development faster than anything we’ve seen in decades. And it’s not just about writing code faster. AI is reducing the day-to-day friction that slows teams down: upgrades, migrations, test failures, brittle pipelines, incident response, and the ever-growing backlog of technical debt. That operational drag keeps teams stuck maintaining systems instead of building what’s next.
Agentic DevOps makes this shift practical. Software agents can now help across every stage of the application lifecycle, from planning and refactoring to testing, deployment, and running production systems. The real question organizations face is no longer if they should modernize, but how to modernize safely, continuously, and at scale—without pausing the business.
Modernization is a business decision, but it’s a technical job.
And the challenges are real.
65% of organizations cite security and compliance as a top challenge1
59% struggle with a lack of skilled talent and resources1
58% are held back by the complexity of monolithic applications1
That’s why 35% of modernization projects stall1. The result is growing backlogs of technical debt, rising operational costs, and fewer resources available for innovation.
That’s why developers, architects, and application owners are turning to agents to reduce manual toil, manage complexity, and stay secure from start to finish.
With GitHub Copilot modernization, your teams have end-to-end modernization guidance and execution, with agents across every phase of the lifecycle. For each application, developers can use agents to assess an application, plan the cloud migration, transform code and configuration based on the application’s needs, generate infrastructure-as-code, validate changes, and deploy and test directly on Azure.
And today, it just got even better.
The modernization agent.
In Public Preview today, the modernization agent is empowering teams with scale solutions, not just single-app fixes.
Application owners and architects who need visibility and control across multiple applications can use the modernization agent to:
- Assess readiness across many applications at once
- Plan application specific modernization journeys
- Surface deep code and dependency level insights and recommendations
- Automate upgrades for Java and .NET applications
- Recommend aligned Azure services with organizational needs
Operated from the CLI, the modernization agent integrates directly with GitHub Copilot, creating issues, pull requests, and shareable assessment reports for each application. Architects and application owners retain visibility and governance, while developers receive clear, prioritized work they can execute from the modernization agent or finish directly in their preferred editors!
The modernization agent also coordinates with GitHub Copilot’s coding agent to complete tasks asynchronously across repositories, so you have full monitoring and audit trail in GitHub’s Agent HQ.
The result is a connected planning to execution flow that finally makes modernization at scale possible without sacrificing oversight or control.
Let’s break it down.
Plan your modernization journey at scale
Portfolio managers and central planners are planning an organization’s modernization journey on Azure. Within that, a solution architect or application owner maybe be responsible for 5, 10, 20, or more applications in that portfolio.
They need to quickly understand each application’s unique needs and business goals. Where is there complexity? How much effort will it take? What does success look like for each one?
The modernization agent helps them build actionable plans across their application estate. Take a look.
Execute the plan
With high-confidence plans built from the modernization agent, application owners and architects can pass off to developers to work directly in the IDE to execute where precision work may be needed.
Importantly, no two organizations modernize the same way. Teams have their own standards, frameworks, and business logic—and agents need to respect that.
GitHub Copilot modernization supports custom skills, allowing organizations to tailor modernization to their needs. With custom skills, teams can:
- Preserve critical business logic during transformation
- Standardize outcomes across large application portfolios
- Apply internal SDKs and software factory patterns
Custom skills ensure modernization plans and execution reflect organizational requirements—giving customers the flexibility to move fast without losing consistency or control. Let’s see it in action.
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The way forward
We have much more coming from the modernization agent as we expand the experience beyond the CLI and integrate with Azure Migrate so portfolio managers and central planners can coordinate with application owners and architects at estate scale.
With these new features, we’re excited to accelerate modernization at scale, while ensuring changes are aligned with your organization’s standards and application requirements.
See what else we’ve announced on how agents are reinventing modernization on Azure.
Get started today by joining the Public Preview of the modernization agent and get white-glove support for the Public Preview modernization agent.
Stay tuned for more updates as we make app modernization at scale fast and easy!
1Q1 2026 Cloud and AI Application Modernization Survey conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft
Microsoft