Six Steps to AI-Powered Code Modernization

AI is compressing multi-year code modernization projects into weeks or months, but organizational processes haven't kept pace. The bottleneck has shifted from writing changes to managing approvals, reviews, and change management built around human-authored code. Anthropics forward deployed engineers outline six preparation steps: defining the target state, creating certification criteria, setting promotion policies, establishing prerequisites, building agentic workflows, and running a staged rollout. Choosing between uplift, transform, or reimagine modernization types early is critical, as unresolved disagreements resurface later as disputes over whether changes are correct.