By Mitch Ashley
Publication Date: 2026-02-26 00:00:00
Analyst(s): Mitch Ashley
Publication Date: February 26, 2026
Anthropic’s Claude Code blog on COBOL modernization sparked a sensitive topic. Should we rely upon Claude or IBM to modernize COBOL? Modernizing applications is more than converting codebases to a new programming language.
What is Covered in This Article:
- Anthropic published a technical blog on February 23, 2026, positioning Claude Code for COBOL modernization, targeting the discovery, analysis, and documentation phases that make legacy migration prohibitively expensive.
- IBM’s Project Bob, an AI-first IDE built on VS Code with a multi-model architecture that includes Claude, targets the same COBOL modernization buyers. IBM i CTO Steve Will confirmed Project Bob will replace watsonx Code Assistant for i, covering RPG, CL, SQL, COBOL, Java, and Python on IBM i at launch.
- Successful COBOL modernization programs require business scoping, technical assessment, data migration planning, behavioral equivalence…
