Golden Path Digital, a provider of enterprise modernization solutions, today announced the launch of AS/Forward, an intelligence and automated transpilation platform designed to address the critical workforce cliff facing the IBM i community. The platform combines codebase forensics with automated RPG-to-modern-language migration to help organizations transition from legacy dependencies without disrupting core operations.
For decades, the IBM i platform, formerly known as the AS/400, has powered mission-critical operations in banking, logistics, and manufacturing, handling trillions of dollars in transactions daily. However, the ecosystem faces a systemic threat as the average age of an RPG developer reaches 55 or older. With this veteran workforce approaching retirement, companies risk losing the tribal knowledge required to maintain and evolve these complex systems. The CEO of Golden Path Digital stated, "The Workforce Cliff is not a future risk; it is a present-day reality for thousands of enterprises. AS/Forward was built to ensure that decades of institutional logic are not lost when these experts retire." Many of these systems have been modified thousands of times over thirty years without updated documentation, making them a black box for newer IT staff.
Unlike traditional lift-and-shift tools that merely move technical debt, AS/Forward emphasizes Codebase Clarity as the foundational phase. It performs deep-tissue dependency mapping and impact analysis to uncover hidden relationships within the codebase. By generating automated, natural-language documentation and audit-ready descriptions of business logic, the platform provides IT leadership with an X-ray view of their entire estate. This transparency enables informed, data-driven decisions and translates legacy code into plain English that business leaders can understand.
The platform can convert legacy RPG into a wide array of modern programming languages, including Python, Java, Node.js, JavaScript, C#, and .NET. This multi-language flexibility allows organizations to break their reliance on a dwindling supply of RPG specialists and integrate with modern DevOps practices, cloud-native architectures, and AI-driven workflows. Companies can hire from millions of developers skilled in modern web and cloud frameworks.
AS/Forward also addresses the high failure rate of Big Bang modernization projects through an incremental de-risking approach. Rather than total system replacement, the platform enables a program-by-program migration strategy, allowing organizations to move at their own pace and validate workflows in a production-like environment before decommissioning legacy components. This reduces the risk of business interruption to near zero while providing a clear path to full modernization.
Financially, the platform offers disruptive economics. Traditional consulting models typically cost between $5 million and $20 million per project, while AS/Forward delivers a cost reduction of 10x to 50x. Speed-to-market is also improved, with organizations achieving modernization goals within 12 to 24 months, compared to 5 to 7 years for manual rearchitecting. This allows enterprises to realize a return on investment within the same budget cycles.
To meet regulatory requirements in banking, insurance, and healthcare, the architecture is provider-agnostic and supports running the engine locally via Ollama or within secure private cloud environments like AWS Bedrock. This ensures that sensitive proprietary logic and customer data never leave the client firewall, protecting intellectual property and maintaining compliance.
AS/Forward represents a paradigm shift in enterprise IBM i legacy modernization, moving the industry away from high-stakes, multi-year gambles toward strategic control and operational clarity. As the window for a controlled transition closes due to the aging workforce, the platform provides tools and a roadmap to secure operational futures. Golden Path Digital is committed to ensuring that the systems that built the modern world thrive in the digital future.
