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AI Takes a Jackhammer to Tech Debt

  • Writer: Brad Koontz
    Brad Koontz
  • Jul 22
  • 2 min read
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Enterprises aren’t soaring toward the future—they’re just flapping to stay aloft. Despite allocating nearly 30% of IT budgets to modernization, only three in ten organizations have truly updated their core applications. For the rest, transformation has become little more than preening old feathers instead of growing new wings. Publicis Sapient, in partnership with HFS Research launched a new Market Impact Report: Smash Through Tech Debt: Why AI Is the Jackhammer. Here are the five biggest takeaways:


  1. Treat tech debt like financial debt: Track it, prioritize it, and pay it down with discipline. ​ Use AI to refactor and retire legacy systems, focusing on what slows your business the most. ​ Avoid simply "lifting and shifting"—instead, lift, shake things up, and shift. ​

  2. AI isn’t an overlay—it’s a re-architecture: Stop layering AI onto brittle legacy systems. ​ Rethink workflows, data models, and governance from the ground up, making intelligence the foundation. ​ Design systems to automate decisions, measure outcomes, and adapt continuously. ​

  3. Shift to AI-driven providers: Move away from partners who lead with headcount and focus on providers offering productized, AI-driven capabilities. ​For delivering Microsoft Dynamics and Power Platform services, ps Hummingbird has done just that. We invest in reusable platforms, intellectual property, and industry context.​

  4. Adopt new commercial models: Move beyond time-and-materials pricing. ​ Embrace outcome-based, subscription, or consumption-driven models. ​ Ensure transparency, predictability, and clear ROI, holding partners accountable with analytics rather than anecdotes. ​That is what we at ps Hummingbird have done with our Nectar Works tool. We can greatly increase time to value for Dynamics and Power Platform delivery tasks.

  5. Act decisively and adapt: AI will reshape your business whether you're ready or not. ​ Redefine roles, governance, and delivery around AI-native ways of working. ​ Focus on platforms, embedded guardrails, and orchestration—not oversight or gatekeeping. ​


These five moves emphasize the need for bold action, systemic change, and leveraging AI as a foundational tool to escape the cycle of tech debt. ​Interested in knowing more about how an AI-native Microsoft Business Applications partner can help you take a jackhammer to your tech debt? Let ps Hummingbird show you the way.

 
 
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