Todd Stone

Our CEO Caitlyn Truong was recently featured as a guest contributor in AI Journal, exploring how artificial intelligence is fundamentally transforming data migration from a costly, risky burden into a strategic business enabler.

Key Takeaways from the Article

• ‍The Knowledge Gap Crisis: Traditional data migration fails because current-state experts don't understand new systems, while implementation teams lack visibility into source data nuances—creating costly delays and failed implementations.‍
• Full-Spectrum AI Integration: Unlike point solutions, successful AI data migration leverages the complete AI ecosystem—from clustering algorithms to LLMs—addressing every phase of the migration lifecycle within a unified platform.‍
• Rapid Source Data Comprehension: AI automatically profiles source data in minutes, identifying quality issues and anomalies that traditionally take analysts weeks or months to discover manually.‍
• Mapping Revolution: AI-powered pattern recognition generates mapping recommendations with 85-95% accuracy in seconds, compared to manual approaches that take months—delivering 6x productivity improvements for business analysts.‍
• Plain English Transformations: LLMs enable business analysts to describe requirements in natural language ("split the full name field") and receive production-ready transformation code instantly, eliminating technical handoffs.‍
• Black Box Liberation: AI automatically parses decades-old COBOL code and maps data flows through thousands of modules in minutes, democratizing access to trapped legacy system knowledge.

Ready to Learn More?

Want to see how Zengines can transform your organization's approach to data migration? Schedule a demo to experience frictionless data conversions firsthand.

In this episode of The Disruptor Podcast, host John Kundtz interviews Caitlyn Truong, CEO and Co-founder of Zengines.

Mainframe Modernization Prioritization and Challenges

While mainframes are highly performant and reliable, many organizations are seeking to modernize them to de-risk legacy technology.

Mainframe legacy technology is risky to organizations for several reasons, including:

• Code written decades ago with SMEs no longer available
• Fewer people familiar with older programming languages
• Lack of standards in older code making maintenance difficult

According to Caitlyn, "There are more lines of COBOL code in existence than any other programming language," making mainframe modernization particularly challenging.

Zengines Mainframe Data Lineage Product

Caitlyn explains that Zengines' Mainframe Data Lineage product was developed when they discovered a client struggling to modernize because their mainframe was a "black box." The product ingests schemas, metadata, code (including COBOL and JCLs) to create a data lineage information base, helping business analysts understand calculation logic and conditions critical to modernization success.

Zengines' Mainframe Data Lineage product helps organizations understand their legacy systems by providing:

• Interactive research application and data
• Data lineage with graphical visualization
• Relationship mapping between modules, tables, fields, and variables
• Tables and fields inventory with profiling
• Calculation logic analysis
• Branching/conditional statement analysis

Recommendations for Mainframe Modernization Success

Caitlyn's recommendations for mainframe modernization success include:

• Understand what you're converting and the full lineage/interdependencies
• Have a guiding strategy and design - use phased approaches rather than "big bang"
• Employ proper tools for data lineage to answer questions about the system
• Start small with something you know you can convert, then celebrate successes

Her most important advice is to "get started" rather than spending too much time planning: "You'll learn and get more value just by doing."

Listen to the full episode

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In this episode of The Disruptor Podcast, host John Kundtz interviews Caitlyn Truong, CEO and Co-founder of Zengines.

This show explores how Zengines disrupts organizations' efforts to automate the end-to-end data conversion process.

Caitlyn shares information from her background in electrical and computer engineering and consulting. She often saw the problems with data conversion and migration in large organizations, especially in financial services.

This led her to co-found Zengines to help ensure data stays useful during modernization.

Key points from their discussion

• Understanding Data Migration: It includes all steps to get a new system running, from getting the data mapped and moved to post migration testing.
• Common Pitfalls: Not accounting for all the steps, lack of a plan, not using tools, and not underestimating the work effort.
• Advice for Smoother Migration: Understand all the steps, plan clearly, use tools (especially AI), empower business analysts, and work in steps.

Zengines' Disruptive Way

• Zengines gives business analysts AI tools to automate mapping and changing data.
• This "shift left" approach reduces the need for large teams, making data conversion faster and more efficient by letting the business directly influence data changes.
• This approach moves the work earlier in the process, making data conversion less expensive, more productive, and quicker by letting the business directly affect how data is changed.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this conversation, where Caitlyn and John shift gears and explore the challenges many enterprises face with Mainframe Modernization.

Listen to the full episode

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Do you know exactly where your critical data originates, how it transforms, and where it travels throughout your organization?

We're excited to share that our CEO, Caitlyn Truong, was recently a guest on The Lights On Data Show with host George Firican, revealing why data lineage is such a critical, yet often overlooked, aspect of data management. 

What you'll discover in this episode

• The true definition of data lineage and why it's a critical component for regulatory compliance, transparency, and operational efficiency
• 5 Essential Steps for Successful Data Lineage Implementation:
  • Be clear on use case and scope
  • Have a guiding strategy and design
  • Employ automation tools
  • Start with small focused use cases
  • Celebrate success and expand
• How to overcome "black box" legacy system challenges by leveraging tools like Zengines to capture metadata, understand data patterns, and parse code bases to reverse engineer business context

Why this matters

Caitlyn shares how organizations are increasingly prioritizing data lineage tools to address mainframe management and mainframe modernization projects.

The drivers behind these initiatives include:

• Scarcity of resources who understand legacy systems and code (like COBOL)
• Growing regulatory requirements for transparency
• Critical operational risk reduction

At Zengines, we're helping organizations better understand their mainframes and complex data journeys with AI-powered tools that help business users visualize, research, and discover data lineage components to answer business questions. 

Listen to the full episode

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BOSTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / November 7, 2024 / Zengines, a leading provider of AI-based data management software, today announced that it has closed its oversubscribed Series Seed Preferred round of financing, led by Hyde Park Venture Partners. The new capital will be used to further accelerate the company's product development and market growth.

This announcement follows the recent Fall 2024 release of the company's end-to-end Data Migration platform and the introduction of a new Data Lineage solution.

"We are excited to enter this new phase of growth and are grateful for the opportunity to innovate with leading global enterprises," said Caitlyn Truong, Zengines co-founder and CEO. "Our customers rely on Zengines to reduce the time, cost, and risk associated with migrating data to new systems."

The Zengines Data Migration platform has three major components:

• The Zengines Analyzer identifies data requirements for new target systems through intelligent discovery and analysis of the sources of data.
• The Zengines Mapper applies AI and machine learning to generate field and pick-list matches and transforms the data according to compliance, quality, system, and business requirements.
• The Zengines Loader moves the transformed data to the target systems directly or via load files and tests and validates the converted data.

Customers benefit because the three platform components are fully integrated and share and learn from the Active Metadata captured in one knowledge source.

"We designed the Zengines platform to help our customers during every step of the end-to-end data migration process," said Carl Drisko, co-founder and CTO. "Our new Data Lineage solution helps enterprises understand where their data comes from and the logic that was used to create it. It accelerates Mainframe Modernization and supports other Data Governance, Data Design, and Data Quality initiatives."

The Zengines Data Lineage solution traces data from databases or files through complex, multi-step processes and shows exactly where it originated and how and why it reached its transformed state. The software analyzes jobs, schedules, scripts, and COBOL source code and produces high level logic flows as well as field level logic views.

"Zengines continues to make great progress using AI technology to solve some of the industry's most challenging data migration and data management problems," said Greg Barnes, Partner at Hyde Park Venture Partners. "We were excited to lead this financing and look forward to the next phase of growth."

About Zengines

Zengines has created an entirely new way of converting data. The Zengines AI platform automates the end-to-end data migration process, reducing the time, cost, and risk associated with data conversions, system migrations, and data onboarding for a variety of business solutions. Zengines is used by leading enterprises, software vendors, and consultants across multiple industries.

Please visit zengines.ai

For additional information, please contact:

Todd Stone
Zengines President
todd@zengines.ai

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We are thrilled to announce that Zengines has been selected as one of only five startups nationwide to participate in Ally Financial's inaugural Innovation Challenge focused on Responsible AI. This recognition highlights our commitment to developing AI solutions that make data conversions frictionless while maintaining the highest standards of responsibility and security.

About the Ally Innovation Challenge

The Ally Innovation Challenge was launched in May 2025 as an Open Innovation program designed to foster learning between Ally Financial and startups that prioritize deploying AI responsibly in a safe and secure manner. The selection process was highly competitive, with less than 5% of applicants chosen to participate in this 8-week mentorship program.

Our Experience

As part of this prestigious program, the Zengines team had the opportunity to engage with Ally's AI & Technology, Risk, Security, and Supply Chain units, alongside technologists supporting all of Ally's underlying businesses. Through interactive mentoring sessions, we shared knowledge, presented our solutions to a tech-focused audience, and benefited tremendously from the expertise and feedback provided.

Why This Matters

This recognition validates our mission to help companies adopt the latest and best technologies seamlessly through frictionless data conversions. In the financial services sector, where data security and responsible AI implementation are paramount, our solutions address critical challenges that organizations face during technology transitions.

Our CEO, Caitlyn Truong, commented:

"Being selected for the Ally Innovation Challenge is a testament to our team's dedication to solving complex data migration challenges with AI while maintaining the highest standards of responsibility. The insights gained through our interactions with Ally's experts have been invaluable in refining our approach to responsible AI implementation."

About Zengines

Founded in July 2020, Zengines is an AI tech company with a vision of frictionless data conversions. Our solutions help organizations accelerate technology transformations by solving data conversion challenges with AI, reducing time, cost, and risk associated with data migrations.

Our technology allows business analysts to map, change, and move data when new data sources or systems come into the picture. Zengines is powered by AI to cover all critical steps of migrating data, including handling legacy mainframes and home-grown "black box" systems.

For more information about how Zengines can help your organization with data migration and mainframe data lineage, contact our team today.

CHICAGO, March 27, 2023 -- Zengines, the first AI-powered data conversion platform, announced today the closing of $5M in funding led by Hyde Park Venture Partners with participation from Hyde Park Angels. The funding will be used to expand product, engineering, and go-to-market capabilities.  

When organizations migrate data to new applications, systems or outsourced services, Zengines automates the end-to-end data conversion process. This reduces the risk, time and cost associated with implementing new technologies.

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“Organizations and their systems are in constant change,” said Caitlyn Truong, Zengines co-founder and CEO. “It’s estimated that companies spend more than $100B per year converting their data to new systems. The problem is messy and complex and limits an organization’s ability to execute their business and technology strategy. With Zengines, there’s a better way.”

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The Zengines data conversion platform has three major components.

1. Analyzer. Identify data requirements for new target systems and analyze the data and schemas of the source systems that are being replaced.  

2. Mapper. Generate field and code list matchings, perform needed data transformations, quality checks, and business rules.

3. Loader. Load the target systems with the transformed data directly through load files or APIs. Test and validate that the conversion was completed correctly.

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“Data conversion efforts still rely on spreadsheets to map the fields and custom code to do the heavy lifting,” said Carl Drisko, Zengines co-founder and CTO. “Zengines has developed industry-specific AI models that dramatically improve the speed at which data is analyzed, matched, transformed, and loaded into new target systems.”

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“We’re thrilled to be working with the Zengines team,” said Greg Barnes, Partner at Hyde Park Venture Partners. “The founding team at Zengines is a group of industry experts solving one of the most painful problems facing all enterprises; successfully and efficiently converting critical data to new systems.”

About Zengines

Zengines has created an entirely new way of converting data. The Zengines AI platform automates the end-to-end data conversion process, reducing the time, cost and risk associated with data conversions, system migrations and data onboarding for a variety of business solutions. Zengines is used by leading enterprises, software vendors and consultants across multiple industries.