Services - AI-powered legacy modernisation
Old platforms hold the business together and hold it back at the same time. We modernise them the safe way: incrementally, without a big-bang rewrite, onto modern foundations that are ready for AI rather than fighting it.
ColdFusion, PHP, ageing React, and legacy APIs moved carefully onto React, Next.js, and AWS, component by component, while the system you depend on keeps running. The end state is not just faster and cheaper to maintain, it is a platform AI can actually plug into.
Assess and de-risk
Most legacy modernisation fails for one reason: the team tries to rewrite everything at once. We start the other way round, by understanding exactly what you have. We map the codebase, the data, the integrations, and the parts that quietly hold the business together, so nothing important gets discovered halfway through a migration.
You come out of this phase with a prioritised, incremental plan that ships value continuously rather than in one terrifying release, plus honest cost estimates and a clear view of the risks before you commit budget to any of it.
Included in this phase
- Codebase & infrastructure audit
- Dependency mapping
- Risk assessment
- Migration roadmap
- Cost estimates
Modernise incrementally
We modernise the way that keeps you in business: component by component, behind a facade, so the old system and the new one run side by side until the last piece is moved. No big-bang rewrite, no months where nothing ships, no weekend cutover that has to go perfectly.
ColdFusion, PHP, jQuery, old Angular, ageing React, and legacy REST APIs all move onto modern React and Next.js on AWS, with CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and monitoring in place before anything is switched over. We are one of the few UK agencies that can do this without throwing away decades of business logic in the process, backed by deep ColdFusion modernisation and legacy API migration experience.
How we work
- Strangler-fig migration. We route traffic through a facade and replace the system piece by piece, so the old and new run together and you can stop at any point with a working product.
- Zero-downtime cutover. Full infrastructure as code, automated tests, and staged rollouts mean each migration step ships safely, with a clear rollback if it does not.
- Value every sprint. The business sees improvements continuously rather than waiting for a single end-of-project release that may never arrive.
Make it AI-ready
Here is the part most modernisation projects miss. The reason to modernise now is not just speed and maintainability, it is that legacy platforms are the single biggest blocker to adopting AI. Agents, assistants, and automation need clean APIs, structured data, and observability to plug into. A tangled legacy estate has none of those, which is why AI pilots so often stall.
So we modernise toward that end state deliberately: API-first, well-structured data, and the instrumentation AI needs. When the platform is ready, adding AI integration becomes a feature you ship, not a research project. Modernisation is the on-ramp to AI, and we build it as one.
What AI-ready means
- Clean, documented APIs
- Structured, accessible data
- Observability & logging
- AI integration readiness
Why Maven - Modernisation without the big-bang risk
We keep the business running while we modernise underneath it, then hand you a platform that is ready for whatever comes next, including AI.
- Incremental, not big-bang. We replace legacy systems piece by piece behind a facade, so you are never one failed release away from an outage.
- We keep it running. Your existing platform stays live and supported throughout. Users and revenue are not put on hold while we work.
- Rare legacy depth. Twenty-two years of ColdFusion and legacy experience means we understand the systems most agencies will not touch, and the business logic buried in them.
- AI-ready by design. We modernise toward clean APIs and structured data, so adding AI afterwards is a feature, not a fresh rebuild.
- Full-stack capability. Frontend, backend, APIs, data, and AWS infrastructure handled by one senior team, so nothing falls between the gaps.
- Honest guidance. Sometimes the right answer is to keep and maintain, not migrate. We will tell you when that is the case.
FAQ - Legacy modernisation FAQs
The questions we hear most from teams weighing up a modernisation.
- Is a full rewrite not cleaner than an incremental migration?
- It sounds cleaner and usually is not. Big-bang rewrites run for months with nothing shipped, quietly lose business logic nobody documented, and fail at the one cutover that has to be perfect. Incremental migration replaces the system piece by piece behind a facade, so you have a working product at every step and can stop whenever you like.
- Will our system keep running while you modernise it?
- Yes. The existing platform stays live and supported throughout. We route traffic through a facade and move functionality across component by component, so users and revenue are never put on hold. Each step ships with automated tests and a clear rollback, so a bad change is reversible rather than an outage.
- How long does a legacy modernisation take?
- It depends on the size and tangle of the estate, but value ships every sprint rather than at the end. A focused application might be largely modernised in a few months; a large estate runs longer on a phased plan. The first assessment gives you a prioritised roadmap and honest cost estimates before you commit budget.
- Do we have to leave ColdFusion or our current stack entirely?
- Not necessarily. Sometimes the right answer is to keep and maintain what works and modernise only the parts that hold you back. We support and harden ColdFusion, PHP, and legacy APIs as readily as we migrate them, and we will tell you honestly when a migration is not worth the money yet.
- Why does modernisation matter for adopting AI?
- AI agents and assistants need clean APIs, structured data, and observability to plug into. Legacy platforms have none of those, which is why so many AI pilots stall. We modernise toward an API-first, well-instrumented platform, so that adding AI afterwards becomes a feature you ship rather than a research project.
Bring us the messy, valuable software problem.
We will help you decide what to build, what to modernise, and where the highest-return work actually is.
Our offices
- London
71-75, Shelton Street,
Covent Garden, London