During the Morgan Stanley Hackathon at the end of 2023, two teams were trying to solve the problem that had been worrisome to developers for years. This is how you can rewrite legacy code into modern programming languages.
The nugget of the idea has been changed to devgen.ai. The bank’s global technology strategy, architecture and modernization was the 11,666 days that were previously dedicated to deciphering tools that saved developers over 280,000 hours in June, or previously outdated code. Brosnan leads the effort to build tools, converting code from old languages into simple English specifications, and then rewrites it.
Legacy code refers to old software code that considers languages such as COBOL, developed in 1959, that can increase security risks and slow down the speed at which businesses can utilize new technologies, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Banks and financial institutions rely on older programming languages, the journal says.
“In early 2024, I drew some of the company’s top notable engineers from the business line into a new applied AI team because my instinct was saying there’s a great opportunity here,” Brosnan told Business Insider.
His instinct was right – the tool exceeds even his high expectations. The patent was granted in early June, and the bank’s patent accelerator program was supported.
Cut out “sick” tasks, not work
Brewer and Brosnan said DevGen.AI will not take on software engineering or other jobs with time savings. According to Brewer, the technique replaces “troubling” memorization tasks.
“That means those people can actually work on what we’re working on, and that’s the future,” she said. AI presents opportunities across the enterprise, and Morgan Stanley is considering how agent AI can be used across the team.
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“The reality is that we have a lot of modernization jobs and there is a continuous demand to provide more functionality, more capabilities from all businesses,” Brosnan said.
Young people are struggling to land quality positions, especially in the high-tech sector, and AI is already beginning to increase jobs across the industry. White-collar jobs nationwide are shrinking faster than the blue-collar list, including software developers.
Still, Brewer and Brosnan have assured that Devgen.ai will not deprecate the developers. Morgan Stanley served 233 technology jobs in the Americas that were posted to the website at the time of writing, including dozens of openings for software engineers.
devgen.ai’s first team was small
Many of the bank’s engineers weren’t working on DevGen.ai – Brosnan said the first team was less than five people “who have a passion for this.” Ultimately, the core group expanded to around 20 engineers. Throughout the process, they consult with experts on the subject matter across the company to grasp the various use cases of the tool, Brosnan said.
Morgan Stanley could have outsourced the development of the tool, but Brosnan said he decided to partially develop it to “implement all kinds of security controls.” Now, he said employees use the tool across departments, from the institution to the asset management business.
“Even within the world of generator AI, this was a very, very, very clever use, but very impactful,” said Larry Bromberg, global head of intellectual property legal, who co-leads the patent accelerator program.
As he is pleased with the results, Brosnan said his team celebrated their success very easily.
“Frankly, they’re still very focused on their day’s work. Our mission is to accelerate modernization at Morgan Stanley, and we still have a lot to do,” he said.
This technology is set up to stay inside for now
One reason for the celebration was getting a patent. This is recommended for Morgan Stanley employees to do so through the Patent Accelerator Program. Brewer said the program provides support throughout the invention and legal process.
Patent holders are spreading to the company – there are around 500 in 14 different divisions, Brewer said. From 2023 to 2024, the Patent Accelerator Program increased its final filing to the Patent Office by 53%, with Brewer saying it would “undoubtedly” surpassing this year. Brewer said 20% of patent holders are junior staff and 10% are well-known engineers.
One of the lead engineers on the devgen.ai team is like a recipient of a serial patent, and is the “serial criminal” that Brewer said, and has obtained 13 patents so far.
Brosnan said the team has no immediate plans to license the new patented tool. It’s probably in high demand, considering that a number of old and large tech companies have to deal with outdated code languages.
“Now, our plan is to make sure we use this internally for all of our modernization demands. We have not decided anything that is different,” he said.
In the meantime, the question of how to modernize using AI is that banking modernization is nowhere to go. As Brosnan said, his technician returned to “practical keyboards” with every win.
