# Cisco Gives Engineer Unlimited AI Tokens for 98% Code Rewrite

> Cisco president hands one engineer unlimited AI tokens to refactor 98% of legacy code in 24 months.
- Title: Cisco Gives Engineer Unlimited AI Tokens for 98% Code Rewrite
- Summary: Cisco president hands one engineer unlimited AI tokens to refactor 98% of legacy code in 24 months. Cisco president Jeetu Patel gave 27-year-old engineer…
- Keywords: cisco, engineer, tokens, refactor, legacy code, mainframe, business, finance, Gives, Unlimited, Code, Rewrite
- Source: Pymnts — https://pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/2-engineers-unlimited-tokens-and-ciscos-98-rewrite
- Author: PYMNTS
- Published: 2026-11-02T18:59:19+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: cisco, ai, engineer, tokens, refactor, legacy code, mainframe, business, finance
## Cisco's AI Refactor Challenge
Cisco president Jeetu Patel gave 27-year-old engineer Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy unlimited AI tokens to refactor 98% of the company's legacy code within 24 months.

> I've given him unlimited tokens because he's going to refactor code
## Brazil's Bank Uses AI for Mainframe Migration
Brazil's largest bank Itaú Unibanco used AI to cut migration time for mainframe batch systems by up to 70% and sped project delivery by up to 3.3 times.
## AI Validation Framework for Code
Itaú ran every AI-extracted rule through a validation framework and generated code passed security and quality checks on first pass.
## COBOL Legacy Systems Challenge
71% of mainframe teams report understaffing and 40% of banks still run COBOL-based cores despite scarce documentation.
## Itaú's AI Migration Gains
Itaú used AI agents to cut migration time for batch systems by up to 70% and sped project delivery by up to 3.3 times.
## Banking AI Adoption Challenges
Banks face challenges with AI-generated code as legacy systems hold decades of transaction rules and regulatory requirements.
## AI Validation Ensures Accuracy
Itaú built a validation framework to confirm every business-critical rule survived extraction before rebuilding.
## Key takeaway

Cisco president Jeetu Patel gave 27-year-old engineer Padmanabhan Krishnamurthy unlimited AI tokens to refactor 98% of the company's legacy code within 24 months.