Organisations in Asia Pacific are reshaping application development and maintenance (ADM) with AI to accelerate change while maintaining governance and business continuity, according to a new research report from Information Services Group (ISG).
The 2026 ISG Provider Lens® AI-Driven ADM Services report for Asia Pacific says enterprises are modernising complex IT environments that combine legacy applications, packaged platforms, cloud-native systems and increasingly AI-enabled business workflows. The report finds buyers are seeking providers that can improve reuse, speed and reliability in software delivery, rather than simply adding engineering capacity.
“Organizations in Asia Pacific need application change that is faster, more reliable and fully accountable,” said Michael Gale, partner and regional leader, ISG Asia Pacific. “They are embedding AI throughout software lifecycles while maintaining clear oversight of security, traceability and quality.”
The report points to a shift in sourcing expectations across the region. While India remains a major engineering and delivery hub, ISG says enterprises increasingly want ADM services delivered with local context rather than relying only on offshore outsourcing. In Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, it says demand is growing for local engagement, regulatory familiarity, business proximity and industry-specific delivery.
ISG says organisations are embedding AI into ADM practices including requirements analysis, code generation, documentation, testing, remediation and release readiness. It also describes efforts to make application operations more proactive through observability, AI for IT operations (AIOps), knowledge automation and self-healing approaches, alongside wider use of continuous testing and AI-enabled test generation to support faster release cycles. The report says predictive quality analytics are being adopted to validate software across CI/CD processes, APIs, packaged applications and cloud platforms.
The research highlights ongoing constraints facing many organisations, including technical debt, legacy dependencies, ERP integrations and hybrid infrastructure. ISG says companies are responding by assessing application portfolios and sequencing “modernisation waves” before moving selected workloads to cloud-native architectures, in an effort to protect business-critical systems during operating model changes. The report says these considerations are most critical in industries including financial services, manufacturing, communications, infrastructure, mobility and other asset-intensive sectors.
“Application modernization, maintenance and assurance must work as an integrated lifecycle,” said Maharshi Pandya, ISG senior lead analyst and lead author of the report. “Enterprises are seeking providers that use operational insight to shape application improvement and help manage risk across complex estates.”
The report evaluates 38 providers across three quadrants: Application Development Outsourcing, Application Managed Services and Application Quality Assurance. It names Accenture, Capgemini, Cognizant, DXC Technology, HCLTech, IBM, Infosys, TCS, Tech Mahindra and Wipro as Leaders in all three quadrants. LTM is named as a Leader in two quadrants and Hitachi Digital Services and Planit are named as Leaders in one quadrant each.
ISG also names NTT DATA as a Rising Star in two quadrants, and LTM as a Rising Star in one quadrant. In addition, Altimetrik is named ISG’s global CX Star Performer for 2026 among AI-driven ADM service providers, based on customer satisfaction scores in ISG’s Voice of the Customer survey, which forms part of the ISG Star of Excellence program.
The ISG Provider Lens AI-Driven ADM Services report for Asia Pacific is available to subscribers or for one-time purchase via ISG.
