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What Does AI Bring to COBOL Programming in 2026?
“AI will not replace humans, but those who use AI will replace those who don’t.”
– A quote from Ginni Rometty, Former CEO of IBM
As a COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) programmer with 30 years of experience in the industry, I’m interested to know how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be applied to help in programming a legacy enterprise language like COBOL.
I agree with Ginni Rometty: AI will not replace COBOL programmers, but those who use AI in COBOL programming will replace those who don’t.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is significantly transforming COBOL programming, primarily by addressing the loss of skilled workers, as veteran programmers retire, and by simplifying the management of billions of lines of legacy code that still power global banking, insurance, and government systems.
10 Ways AI Impacts COBOL Programming:
1. Automated Code Translation:
AI tools like IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z and Anthropic’s Claude Code can translate COBOL into modern languages like Java, Rust, or Python.
The misconception in code translation discussions is that ‘all’ of the COBOL code would be translated. To me, COBOL is a three-tiered…
