# How Prudential is leveraging AI and Kong AI Gateway to transform legacy application modernization

Liz Brand, VP & Global Head of Cloud at Prudential took the stage at API Summit 2025 to share their approach to modernization in the AI era.

### **The Traditional Approach - 8 Years Ago:**

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  Multi-year modernization projects with high capital investment

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  Had to pick high-value targets and prioritize

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  Many legacy applications were left behind because they were too difficult, complex, or costly to modernize

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  Limited scalability—only got to a certain number of applications over the years

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  Data centers were still full of legacy applications waiting to be modernized

### **The New Approach in the AI Era:**

Prudential is "leaning full all in on agentic code development" with the following strategies:

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   **Refactoring Legacy Apps:** Using AI to understand applications that haven't been looked at in years—discovering what they don't even know about them

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   **Application Decomposition:** Breaking down applications into smaller components (microservices with significant agent layers on top)

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   **Eliminating Duplication:** Finding and removing duplicate APIs across the ecosystem to reduce complexity

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   **Tackling Hard Problems:** Now have the tools to take on the difficult, complex applications previously left behind

### **Key Themes**

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  This is a "wipe the slate clean" moment like cloud was a decade ago

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  Creates an opportunity to obsessively learn and relearn problems

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  Companies in the successful 5% will be those that relentlessly pursue different solutions

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  The winning companies will "change the next decade of our technology"

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"It's amazing to see all the advancements with Kong AI Gateway in the last year. It's really a transformative product that you guys have put out there."

— Elizabeth Brand, VP & Global Head of Cloud, Prudential