After IBM's worst day on stock market, IBM senior vice-president Rob Thomas to everyone betting on AI: New AI tools emerge every week, what they do not change is ...
Times of India
by TOI TECH DESKFebruary 24, 2026
AI-Generated Deep Dive Summary
IBM experienced its worst stock market day in over 25 years on February 23 as fears grew that AI startup Anthropic's Claude Code tool could disrupt its dominance in enterprise IT. The百年-old technology giant saw its market value plummet due to concerns that the new AI tool, which can modernize COBOL, IBM's mainframe computers' primary language, might challenge its core business.
In response, IBM Senior Vice President Rob Thomas emphasized that the company's mainframes deliver value through their platform's performance and security, not just COBOL. He clarified that whether applications are written in COBOL or other languages like Java, the platform remains consistent in delivering high transactional resilience, security, and efficiency.
Thomas stressed that modernizing code is far more complex than merely translating COBOL. It involves redesigning data architecture, replacing runtimes, ensuring transaction integrity, and maintaining hardware-accelerated performance—challenges IBM has mastered over decades of expertise. He highlighted that AI tools may emerge weekly, but they don’t change the fundamental engineering challenges of managing mission-critical workloads at scale.
The article underscores why this matters: while AI tools like Claude Code spark debates about legacy code modernization, the real value lies in the platform's ability to handle complex, mission-critical tasks. IBM’s mainframes are integral to global financial systems, supporting billions of transactions daily with unmatched security and efficiency. This highlights the enduring importance of robust, reliable infrastructure in an era of rapid technological change.
For readers interested in global tech trends, this story illustrates how established giants like IBM adapt to AI-driven disruptions while maintaining their core strengths. It also raises questions about the future of legacy systems and whether new tools can truly replace decades of engineering expertise.
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Originally published on Times of India on 2/24/2026