AI COBOL-to-Java conversion called 'more harm than good'

The column responds to a blog post published by Anthropic on February 23, 2026 (US time), which said its AI coding tool Claude Code could modernize COBOL-built systems, triggering a drop in IBM shares. Matsuda, a former SCSK employee and author of books on SIers and project management, uses this as a starting point to discuss the limits of AI-driven conversion. He notes that COBOL is well suited to business systems because its DATA DIVISION defines data structures and records, while Java's object-oriented design is fundamentally different. He describes a conversion project he reviewed where Java code was written to resemble COBOL, which increased complexity and maintenance costs, and made failures harder to resolve. Matsuda compares trying to understand COBOL logic in Java to understanding a delicate Japanese expression in English: it is possible to explain the meaning, but the nuance is often lost. He concludes that AI is a technology, not a solution, and that misuse is the real problem — not the tool itself.