BMC Software has announced new AI capabilities embedded directly into the mainframe tools that operators and developers use daily, targeting the widening skills gap as experienced mainframe professionals leave the workforce.
The centrepiece is an expansion of BMC AMI zAdviser Enterprise. A new Application Analysis capability combines source code analysis, development telemetry and productivity data into AI-generated narrative intelligence reports. These consolidate production stability patterns, code complexity and modernisation recommendations that previously required manual correlation across multiple disconnected systems, giving leaders a single view of which applications carry the highest risk and where to direct modernisation investment.
BMC AMI Assistant, now deployed across the BMC AMI portfolio, brings a Knowledge Hub and Knowledge Expert Chat into operational workflows. The system draws on runbooks, tickets, log files and prior incident resolutions to surface institutional knowledge at the point of need, rather than requiring teams to hunt through documentation.
The mainframe industry is at a crossroads where decades of institutional knowledge is walking out the door even as CIOs are pushing greater use of AI. Organisations can no longer afford to spend days manually correlating data or digging through old runbooks to solve a single incident.
Certificate management
The company also introduced BMC AMI Digital Certificate Management, described as the first automated certificate management solution purpose-built for mainframe environments. With SSL/TLS certificate lifespans set to drop from 398 days to 47 days by 2029, manual certificate management on mainframes will become operationally untenable. The solution integrates with Venafi and Keyfactor to automate the full certificate lifecycle without infrastructure changes.
According to BMC’s own 2025 State of the Mainframe report, 66% of the mainframe workforce now identifies as Gen Z or millennial, a demographic shift that makes embedded, contextual AI assistance a practical necessity rather than a convenience.
