TLDR: Rocket Software has announced significant innovations to its COBOL solutions, integrating generative AI capabilities and expanding support for cloud and Arm processors. These updates aim to modernize critical COBOL applications, which power 70% of global business transactions, by enabling faster development, easier code understanding, and seamless deployment to modern IT architectures. The goal is to preserve business continuity and unlock new value without the high cost and risk of complete rewrites, ensuring COBOL remains a vital engine for digital transformation.
WALTHAM, Mass. – September 19, 2025 – Rocket Software Inc., a global leader in modernization software, has unveiled groundbreaking enhancements to its COBOL solutions, integrating generative artificial intelligence (AI) and adding support for Arm processors and cloud-ready deployments. These strategic updates are designed to future-proof COBOL, a programming language that continues to be a cornerstone of global business operations, powering an estimated 70% of the world’s business transaction processing across critical sectors like banking, insurance, travel, retail, and government.
Despite its origins in the 1970s, COBOL remains indispensable, with between 220 billion and 800 billion lines of code still in active use today, serving approximately 90% of Fortune 500 companies. The challenge for many organizations lies in modernizing these mission-critical systems without disrupting ongoing operations or incurring the immense costs and risks associated with complete rewrites. Rocket Software’s latest innovations directly address this by enabling “modernization in place.”
At the heart of these enhancements are three key components: modern development environments, cloud and container compatibility, and AI-powered code analysis. The company’s Visual COBOL solution standardizes COBOL development alongside other programming languages, integrating seamlessly into popular Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) such as Visual Studio, Eclipse, and VS Code. This allows developers to leverage contemporary syntax and tools, accelerating change cycles and fostering collaboration.
Neil Fowler, Senior Vice President of Hybrid Cloud Engineering at Rocket Software, emphasized the flexibility this offers: “Visual COBOL is a full development and modernization solution that includes compiler technology, runtime support and integration into industry-standard IDEs. Developers can choose their preferred IDE while working with COBOL.”
Crucially, Rocket Software has infused generative AI capabilities into its COBOL Analyzer toolset. This AI-driven insight helps developers, even those new to COBOL, quickly understand and work with complex codebases through AI-driven explanations and refactoring suggestions. Fowler highlighted the impact, stating, “It lowers the barrier to entry dramatically. Developers can open COBOL projects in Visual Studio or VS Code, use generative AI to quickly understand and navigate code, refactor business logic and deploy through a modern DevOps pipeline.”
Beyond development, the updates include COBOL Server, which provides a high-performance, portable deployment platform. This supports low-risk deployment to new infrastructure and access to modern IT architectures, including cloud and container environments, while enabling seamless integration with APIs, .NET, and Java platforms.
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Rocket Software asserts that these advancements will allow enterprises to evolve core systems, integrate with modern platforms, and reimagine the future potential of COBOL. The company stated, “With decades of expertise in COBOL modernization, Rocket Software is not just supporting COBOL— we’re transforming how it’s developed, deployed, and integrated to ensure it remains a vital engine of business innovation and digital transformation for years to come.” These innovations promise to unlock new opportunities for competitive agility, reduce operational risk, lower costs, and help alleviate talent shortages in the COBOL domain.
