From the boardroom to the engineering floor, one question now eclipses all others: Are we modernizing with artificial intelligence (AI) in a way that truly changes outcomes? In my years working on large-scale transformations at PwC Consulting, IBM, and KPMG, I have watched companies pursue modernization with both zeal and confusion. Today, as AI indisputably becomes part of every company's roadmap, the critical challenge is no longer whether to adopt AI. It is whether that adoption can deliver real impact when it intersects with people, process, and the work of modernization.

In 2025, the corporate world reached a moment both exciting and sobering. McKinsey reports that 88% of organizations now use AI in at least one business function. Yet emerging research on GenAI adoption paints a very different picture of value creation. An MIT study finds that only 5% of GenAI initiatives are generating measurable return on investment, despite tens of billions in enterprise spending.

That contrast reveals why modernization remains stuck. AI, in and of itself, does not reorganize workflows, reform organizational habits, or unlock buried knowledge in legacy systems. What it can do, when implemented with discipline, is amplify disciplined work. What it cannot do is substitute for that discipline.

To understand why, we need to revisit how modernization became a linchpin of corporate strategy. In the past two decades, companies accumulated layers of technology like geological strata: old code mixed with new frameworks, undocumented decisions embedded in brittle logic, and systems that function only because a handful of long-tenured engineers hold the tacit memory. Modernization is........

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