Integrator strength · 01
Capacity on demand
Accenture employs about 814,000 people and Cognizant about 356,700, according to their 2026 filings. When a program needs a hundred engineers next month, few internal teams can staff it alone.
Home/Compare/Aedeon vs system integrators with AI
Aedeon vs system integrators with AI: a program you staff, or a product your team runs.
Accenture, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant and the other global system integrators now sell legacy modernization with AI built in. Aedeon is the system of record for how your software actually works, and the engine that evolves it.
An integrator brings people, industry knowledge and accountability under a services contract. Aedeon is software. It builds a map of each system in about an hour, prices every change before you approve it, and checks the result against the old system on production traffic. If you also want hands-on help, services partners can work in Aedeon under their own contracts.
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- Never trained on your code
- Runs in your cloud
- Your team approves every step
Customer proof · The New York Times · PLATO · Oracle 12c → Aurora PostgreSQL · live June 1, 2026
6.0Mlines of code
12weeks, end to end
5.0×faster than conventional
0divergences across 2,412,880 replayed requests
The New York Times evolved PLATO off Oracle onto Aurora with Aedeon, verified against production traffic before it shipped.
The short answer
An integrator sells a program. Aedeon is the platform your team runs.
The buyer’s question
Should an integrator or a platform run our next modernization program?
System integrators
Global system integrators run modernization as a staffed program: discovery, planning, conversion and testing, delivered by their people on their own AI platforms. Those platforms increasingly run on engines from Anthropic, OpenAI, Cognition, AWS and IBM. Contracts are moving from time and materials toward fixed-price and outcome-based terms.
Aedeon
It is a product your own team runs. Aedeon Graph maps every application, database, pipeline and business rule. From one sentence, Aedeon Supervisor writes a plan with an estimated cost, and Aedeon Evolve carries out each step behind a gate a person approves, then verifies the result on production traffic. The map stays with you after every change.
Which to choose
Choose an integrator when the gap is people, whether that means delivery capacity, industry depth or a partner who carries delivery risk under contract. Aedeon fits when you want your own team to change systems with a map, a priced plan and proof, at platform prices. Many enterprises will do both, with a services partner working inside Aedeon.
How integrators package AI
How ten system integrators package AI for legacy modernization
Every large integrator now sells a branded AI modernization stack. The lifecycle they describe is close to identical: read the legacy code, extract the business rules, convert the code, generate tests and keep a person in the loop. Several of those platforms sit on the same small set of engines.
PeopleConsultants, architects and forward deployed engineers, billed by the quarter or by outcome
Integrator platformGenWizard, Topaz, MasterCraft, Flowsource, WEGA, AI Force
AI engineClaude Code, Codex, Devin, Factory, AWS Transform, watsonx Code Assistant for Z, Pega Blueprint
Your systemsApplications, databases, jobs and the business rules inside them
| Integrator | Its platform | Engines and partners it has announced |
|---|---|---|
| Accenture | GenWizard | Claude and Claude Code through the Accenture Anthropic Business Group (December 2025); OpenAI Frontier Alliance (February 2026); extensions to AWS Transform for mainframe (July 2026) |
| Infosys | Topaz | Claude, Claude Code and the Claude Agent SDK (February 2026); Cognition’s Devin, run in customer environments as a managed service (January 2026) |
| TCS | MasterCraft | OpenAI Codex (February 2026); Claude for 50,000 associates, as reported in June 2026 |
| Cognizant | Flowsource and Skygrade | Claude and Claude Code as a Global Premier partner (July 2026); Devin and Windsurf (January 2026) |
| Wipro | WEGA | Factory’s Droids (January 2026); a Claude center of excellence (June 2026) |
| HCLTech | AI Force | Pega Blueprint (May 2026); IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z; OpenAI (June 2025) |
| IBM | IBM Bob and watsonx Code Assistant for Z | Claude in IBM’s software portfolio (October 2025); IBM Bob packages for IBM Z, IBM i and Java (July 2026) |
| Kyndryl | Agentic Modernization on Kyndryl Bridge | Sold as services-as-software, with Kyndryl experts in oversight (August 2026); no AI partners named |
| Deloitte | Claude-enabled code accelerators | Claude for more than 470,000 people (October 2025) |
| Thoughtworks | AI/works | Mainframe work in collaboration with Mechanical Orchard (January 2026) |
Platform and partnership details from each company’s announcements and its partners’ announcements, checked October 28, 2026. Because several integrators license the same engines, two competing bids can rest on the same underlying AI.
Credit where it is due
What a good integrator brings
Integrators remain the default for large programs for good reasons, and services partners can work alongside Aedeon.
Integrator strength · 02
Industry content
Integrators package regulatory and domain knowledge into their delivery. On AWS Transform for mainframe, Accenture adds what it calls industry-specific knowledge cartridges.
Integrator strength · 03
Risk under contract
Fixed-price and outcome-based deals move delivery risk onto the provider. Cognizant has priced an insurance deal on a projected 50 percent productivity gain over five years, according to Forrester.
How integrators bill in 2026
The billing unit is changing, and the odds favor buyers
AI is moving integrator contracts from hours toward outcomes. The people who run and study these firms describe the shift in their own words.
Quote · 01
“Because of AI, there is more of a shift toward output and outcome-based pricing than input-based pricing.”
C. Vijayakumar · CEO, HCLTech · Quoted by Forrester, October 16, 2026
Quote · 02
“We are not going to underwrite uneconomic productivity assumptions.”
Jayesh Sanghrajka · CFO, Infosys · Quoted by Forrester, October 16, 2026
Quote · 03
“It’s a desperate market for the service providers. The odds are very much in favour of clients.”
Jimit Arora · CEO, Everest Group · To Reuters, August 21, 2026
Quote · 04
“The pyramid model is gone. With coding agents, we no longer need basic coding.”
V. Balakrishnan · Former CFO, Infosys · To Reuters, August 21, 2026
is the productivity gain TCS says it passes to clients in most places.
K. Krithivasan, CEO, TCS, quoted by Forrester
less is what clients now expect to pay for the same work, Persistent Systems’ CEO told Reuters.
Reuters, August 21, 2026
When productivity is promised in the contract, delivery risk moves to the integrator, which is why some now walk away from deals they cannot make work. Aedeon reaches cost certainty another way: it prices each change from the map before anyone approves it.
After the program
The program ends. The team rolls off. The graph stays.
The systems most in need of change are old, and the people who understand them move on. GAO’s 2025 list of the most critical US federal legacy systems puts their ages at 23 to 60 years. Median tenure with an employer in US computer and mathematical jobs was 4.6 years in January 2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
On a staffed program, much of what the team learns about your systems leaves with the team. With Aedeon, it goes into the graph, where every fact is version-stamped, cited by each change and exportable. The next change starts from what the last one found, and in Aedeon’s illustrative cost index the tenth change costs 19 percent of the first.
Integrator-led program
Aedeon Graph
Why large programs miss
The causes are documented, and each one has an answer
BCG’s 2024 study of more than 1,000 executives found that more than two-thirds of large-scale tech programs are not expected to land on time, on budget and in scope. Respondents named the causes.
Published cause · BCG, November 2024
More than 55% say their companies fail to manage interdependencies within and across projects.
How Aedeon answers it
Aedeon Graph finds the dependencies before a plan is written, across repositories, databases, jobs and reports.
Published cause · BCG, November 2024
More than 60% blame the lack of an end-to-end master plan.
How Aedeon answers it
Aedeon Supervisor writes the whole plan from one sentence, step by step, with target files and an estimated cost for your architects to edit.
Published cause · McKinsey with the University of Oxford, 2012
Large IT projects ran 45% over budget and delivered 56% less value than predicted, across more than 5,400 projects.
How Aedeon answers it
Each Aedeon change is priced before anyone approves it, and production traffic shows whether it worked before it ships.
Where Aedeon is different
Software your team runs, with the proof built in
Aedeon sells a product, and every part of it is built for the team that owns the systems.
A product, priced like one.
Platform plans run from $20 to $200 a month, and Virtual Private Aedeon starts at $50,000 a year. Aedeon never bills engagement labor.
A map in about an hour per system.
Aedeon Graph builds from your own code, databases and pipelines, and maps 99 percent of business logic automatically. Integrator programs usually open with months of discovery.
Every change priced before it runs.
A change order is the bill for work nobody scoped. Aedeon Supervisor attaches an estimated cost to each plan, and you pay for the credits the steps actually used.
Proof from production traffic.
The changed system runs against the old one on real traffic, with data, application and behavior checks in parallel. On The New York Times change, 2,412,880 requests were replayed and the gate opened at zero divergences.
Partners welcome, on their own contracts.
Services partners can do hands-on work inside Aedeon under their own contracts. The graph, the plans and the change history stay in your Git whoever does the work.
Side by side
Aedeon vs system integrators, row by row
| Integrator-led program | Aedeon | |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | A staffed program or managed service, delivered on the integrator’s platform | A software platform your team runs, plus credits for the work each change does |
| Who does the work | The integrator’s team, increasingly paired with AI agents | Your team, with Aedeon’s agents under their approval; services partners are optional |
| Where work starts | Discovery and assessment, often months long | A map built from your own code in about an hour per system |
| Planning | Program plans and statements of work | A step-by-step plan from one sentence, with target files and an estimated cost |
| How it is billed | Time and materials, fixed price, outcome-based terms or managed services | Platform subscription plus evolution credits |
| When you learn the cost | At signature, then through change orders as scope surfaces | Before you approve each plan |
| How the result is checked | Testing and user acceptance, as the statement of work defines them | Production traffic replayed against the old system; a divergence stops the gate |
| What you keep | Deliverables and documentation named in the contract | A version-stamped graph, and every change in your Git with its full history |
| AI engines | Chosen by the integrator, such as Claude Code, Codex, Devin or AWS Transform | Aedeon Supervisor plans; steps route to frontier models from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini and xAI Grok that your organization approves |
| Best fit | Programs that need people, industry depth and contractual risk transfer | Changes your own team owns, at platform cost, with proof before cutover |
Integrator details from company announcements, filings, earnings calls and analyst coverage, checked October 28, 2026.
Pricing as of October 28, 2026
How integrators price and how Aedeon prices
Integrators do not publish list prices for modernization programs. Their filings, earnings calls and analysts describe how they bill. Aedeon publishes its prices.
Integrator billing models in 2026
| Model | How it works | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Time and materials | Billed by consultant hours or quarters | Cost grows with effort, and new scope arrives as change orders |
| Fixed price | A set price for defined scope; William Blair put 60% of Accenture’s fiscal 2025 revenue in this category | Price certainty for the scope you can define up front |
| Outcome-based | Payment tied to results, or to productivity promised in the contract | Risk moves to the provider, which prices it in |
| Services-as-software | Packaged agentic workflows with experts in oversight, such as Kyndryl’s Agentic Modernization | Pricing not disclosed publicly |
Aedeon plans
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free trial | $0 for 30 days | 5,000 credits once, one user, one repository up to 50K lines, graph view, no credit card |
| Pro | $20 a month | 800 credits a month, 3 users, one repository up to 100K lines |
| Team | $80 a month | 3,500 credits a month, 25 users, 25 repositories up to 500K lines each |
| Max | $200 a month | 9,000 credits a month, unlimited users and repositories, verification agents, production change |
| Virtual Private Aedeon | From $50,000 a year | Single tenant, your keys, your region, air-gapped option |
Services partners
If you bring in a services partner for hands-on delivery, that partner contracts and bills separately. Aedeon never bills engagement labor.
How Aedeon meters
One credit is 1,000 AI tokens. Every plan shows its estimated cost before anyone approves it, and production change runs on Max and Virtual Private Aedeon.
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Decide
Which one fits your situation
Hire an integrator when
- You need delivery capacity your team cannot staff in time.
- You want a provider to carry delivery risk under a fixed-price or outcome contract.
- The program needs regulatory or industry content the integrator has already packaged.
- You want managed services after go-live.
Run Aedeon when
- Your team wants to own the change, the plan and the map.
- Each change has to be priced before anyone approves it.
- Someone has to sign off the cutover with evidence from production traffic.
- You want the next change to start from what the last one found.
Plenty of enterprises will combine the two. A services partner can work inside Aedeon under its own contract, while your team keeps the graph, the plans and the history in your Git.
Answers
Questions buyers ask about system integrators and Aedeon
What is a global system integrator?
A global system integrator is a firm that designs, builds and connects enterprise technology from many vendors at global scale, usually with offshore delivery centers and partnerships with cloud providers and AI labs. Accenture, NTT DATA, TCS, IBM, Capgemini, Cognizant and Infosys are the largest by IT services revenue, according to TBR.
What does tier 1 systems integrator mean?
It is industry shorthand with no formal standard behind it. Indian brokerages apply it to TCS, Infosys, HCLTech, Wipro and Tech Mahindra, and call mid-sized firms such as Coforge tier 2. Buyers usually mean revenue scale, a global delivery footprint and top-level partner status with the hyperscalers.
Who are the largest global system integrators in 2026?
By trailing twelve-month IT services revenue, TBR ranks Accenture first, followed by NTT DATA, TCS, IBM, Capgemini, Cognizant and Infosys, in an update published February 26, 2026. Accenture reported $74.18 billion in revenue for its fiscal year ended August 31, 2026.
How are system integrators using AI for legacy modernization?
Most sell a branded platform, such as Accenture GenWizard, Infosys Topaz or TCS MasterCraft, built around third-party engines like Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Devin, AWS Transform or IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z. Their own people run it, from code comprehension and business-rule extraction through conversion and testing.
What are the alternatives to global system integrators for application modernization?
Buyers can hire a smaller specialist firm, build an in-house team with AI coding tools, or run a platform such as Aedeon with their own engineers. Aedeon maps the systems, plans each change with an estimated cost and verifies the result on production traffic, and services partners can help under their own contracts.
Is Aedeon a consulting firm?
No. Aedeon is a product and your team runs it. Services partners can help with hands-on delivery under their own contracts, and Aedeon never bills engagement labor.
Can a system integrator or SI partner run Aedeon for us?
Yes. A services partner can do hands-on work in Aedeon under its own contract. The graph, the plans and every change, with its approvals and verification runs, stay in your Git whoever does the work.
How do integrators price AI modernization in 2026?
Through a mix of time and materials, fixed price, outcome-based terms and managed services, with a growing share of fixed-price work. Some deals now write productivity into the contract, such as a Cognizant insurance deal priced on a projected 50 percent gain over five years. Aedeon publishes its plan prices and shows each change’s estimated cost before approval.
What happens to system knowledge when the consultants leave?
On a staffed program, much of it leaves with them, in their heads, decks and documents. With Aedeon it lives in the graph, where every fact is version-stamped and cited by the changes that use it, and the graph keeps updating after each change.
How long does a first change take with Aedeon?
Connecting one system and watching the graph build takes about an hour. A first production change usually lands inside a quarter, and The New York Times change ran twelve weeks end to end.
Start here
Modernization and migration are projects. Projects end. Evolution compounds.
Map one system before you sign a statement of work.
Connect one repository and watch the graph build in about an hour. Describe one change and see the plan, the systems it touches and its estimated cost. Then decide how much outside help you need.
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