Capgemini says AI boom will spur years of IT modernization

Capgemini said companies preparing for artificial intelligence would need years of IT modernization, a shift that pushes spending toward cloud migration, data cleanup, cybersecurity and legacy software replacement. Chief Executive Aiman Ezzat said companies hoping to deploy AI at scale will first need to modernize decades-old technology systems.

The French consulting and technology services group backed up that view with stronger trading numbers. First-quarter 2026 revenue reached €5,943 million, up 7.0% at current exchange rates and 11.0% at constant exchange rates, and the company said the quarter validated its cloud and AI strategy. Half-year 2026 revenue rose to €12,082 million, up 8.8% year on year, while operating margin came in at 12.5% of revenue.

Capgemini also lifted its full-year outlook, now expecting constant-currency revenue growth of about 8.5% to 9.0%, up from a prior range of about 6.5% to 8.0%. The company has been preparing investors for this shift for months. Its 2026 Capital Markets Day was titled Capgemini poised to capture the full value of the Agentic AI revolution, and an October 2025 group presentation said it had 420,000 experts in more than 50 countries.

The modernization message runs through Capgemini’s own materials. In May 2025, the company warned in a paper on AI-Assisted Legacy Modernization that old systems can hurt agility, raise costs and create tech debt. That framing matters for sectors such as banking and manufacturing, where firms are trying to move from fragmented systems to integrated digital platforms that can support automation, analytics and generative AI tools.

The spending pattern points to a broader investment cycle beyond model development and chip demand. If boardrooms shift AI budgets from experimentation to infrastructure, the winners are likely to include Capgemini and other technology-services groups that earn fees from systems integration, cloud migration, data architecture and cybersecurity projects. Market research has been tracking that demand as well: MarketsandMarkets said its Mainframe Modernization Market report was published in August 2025, and its Application Modernization Services Market report was published in October 2025.