Reimagining App Modernization for the Era of AI

If you’ve ever been to Microsoft Build, you know it’s not just another tech conference, it’s where ideas spark, connections happen, and the future of software takes shape. This year in Seattle, the energy is off the charts. And for those of us passionate about app modernization, it’s a moment we’ve been building toward (pun intended).

At Microsoft, we believe modernization is more than just updating old systems—it’s about unlocking new possibilities with AI at the center. And at Build 2025, we’re showing exactly how we’re doing that.

AI Is Changing Everything—And We’re Here for It

Let’s start with the big picture: AI is transforming the entire software development lifecycle. From how we build apps to how we manage and scale them, AI is the force multiplier, reshaping how we work, build, deploy, modernize and maintain applications.

Here’s what’s new:

Build smarter

With GitHub Copilot and Copilot extensions, developers can go from idea to working code in record time. Whether you're building new AI-powered apps or modernizing existing ones, GitHub Copilot is like having a supercharged teammate by your side. Make sure to check out our announcements on agentic DevOps, the next evolution of DevOps.

Modernize faster

At Microsoft, we’re using AI to help organizations move from legacy to cloud-native at scale. And now, with app modernization capabilities in GitHub Copilot, developers can offload complex and time-consuming tasks to rapidly update, upgrade, and modernize Java and .NET applications.

The app modernization capabilities in GitHub Copilot helps developers assess, remediate, and validate code changes for re-platforming to Azure services. By using agent mode in GitHub Copilot, the AI agent in GitHub Copilot learns from selected commits and diffs and automate repetitive tasks for changes at scale, significantly reducing the time from weeks and months to mere hours. GitHub Copilot uses pre-define hero formulas to offer recommendations and suggestions for resolving common dependency issues, enabling developers to address common migration tasks for storage, message brokers, authentications, and cache migration, etc. Through the process, humans keep staying in the loop for validation and confirmation, ensuring every step aligns with project requirements and standards. Java and .NET developers can modernize their applications, runtime, framework, and library updates with minimal dev cost and high trust by utilizing GitHub Copilot within Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio. By using agent mode within GitHub Copilot, an AI agent creates an intelligent plan for Java and .NET versions upgrade with an option of upgrading related dependencies such as Spring Boot and JUnit, visualize every task through the upgrade journey, automatically fix errors, learn from developers’ inputs and summarize the upgrade process for review and commit. GitHub Copilot enables upgrades between the most popular Java versions, including Java 8, 17 and 21, and supports the upgrades between .NET Core, .NET 6 and .NET 8.

Customer impact

"Upgrading our flagship .NET application spanning over 450,000 lines of code that has historically been a multi-year effort. But with the GitHub Copilot Upgrade capability, we are now seeing a dramatic acceleration. The tool handled complex projects and package changes with ease, giving me confidence that we can move to .NET 9 much faster. I even tested it on a partner team's project and completed the upgrade so effortlessly that I immediately recommended they try it too."
— Bart, Principal Software Architect, Exact

Learn more about how GitHub Copilot now supports modernizing .NET and Java applications.

Manage with confidence

Azure SRE agent is a new agentic AI service that can free developers from the constant stress of late-night alerts by monitoring production systems 24/7, responding to incidents in real time, and autonomously troubleshooting issues as they arise. It can cut the time to determine root cause analysis (RCA) to just a few minutes, helping developers reduce the cost of operations while improving uptime. SRE Agent continuously learns from the application health and performance for production applications on Azure, to build context and provide insights for faster troubleshooting. 

Check out this blog for more details on how it works and how to sign up for the preview.

Introducing the App Modernization Guidance

To support this transformation, we’re launching the App Modernization Guidance—a comprehensive, step-by-step playbook designed to help organizations:

• Understand what to modernize and why
• Migrate and rebuild apps with AI-first design
• Continuously optimize with built-in governance and observability

This guidance is built for the AI era. It combines Microsoft’s enterprise experience with the best practices, technical patterns, and AI-enabled tooling like Azure Migrate and GitHub Copilot to help organizations modernize their applications, data, and infrastructure with confidence.

It’s more than guidance, it’s a strategic approach that empowers IT, developers, and transformation teams to:

• Accelerate innovation with AI-powered modernization
• Reduce complexity and technical debt
• Improve agility, performance, and security
• Deliver measurable business outcomes faster

In Reinventing Software Development blog by Mike Hulme, GM Digital App Innovation at Microsoft he stated: “App Modernization Guidance applies decades of enterprise apps experience to help you analyze production apps and prioritize modernization efforts, while applying best practices and technical patterns to ensure success.

Through the App Modernization Guidance and AI innovations with app modernization capabilities in GitHub Copilot, Microsoft is reimagining how businesses transform with cloud and AI. Together with our partners, we’re helping organizations modernize confidently, accelerate innovation, and deliver meaningful business outcomes.

"Backed by our deep expertise in application modernization, the Application Modernization Guidance from Microsoft framework reinforces our structured approach to transforming complex application estates. Paired with Microsoft GitHub Copilot assistants and agents, it enables clients to accelerate delivery and unlock greater business value with confidence. It’s a powerful enabler for those ready to modernize but unsure where or how to start.”

— Stephane Girard, Chief Technology Officer, Global Cloud & Custom Application - Capgemini

“The App Modernization Guidance from Microsoft gives us a clear, scalable approach to help our clients modernise with confidence and deliver real business value. In combination with our advanced generative AI based tooling such as our Decipher platform, it has become a key part of how Version 1 delivers modernisation and transformation at scale.”

— Brad Mallard, Chief Technology Officer - Version 1

This guidance builds on decades of experience working with customers and our vast ecosystem of partners on enterprise modernization. We’ve had it in private preview working with customers on app modernization projects over the past year. And we are now excited to make it generally available to all customers.

This guidance plus the new tooling capabilities will all be made available in familiar places for customers like our Cloud Adoption Framework and Azure Essentials where you’ll find all our expert resources, guidance, and tooling to accelerate your cloud journey.

Explore the Build Experience

Whether you're attending in person or tuning in digitally, here’s where you can dive deeper into app modernization and AI-powered development:

Explore the various breakout, demo and lab sessions at Microsoft Build, May 19-22, to dive deeper into these Azure App Platform innovations. We can’t wait to see what you will build next!

Let’s Build What’s Next—Together

App modernization isn’t just a tech trend—it’s a business imperative. And at Microsoft Build 2025, we’re here to help you lead that transformation with the power of AI.

Whether you’re joining us in person or tuning in online, we can’t wait to show you what’s possible. Follow along on Tech Community, join the conversation on social, and let’s build the future—together.

Explore the App Modernization Guidance