Integration design

Legacy-to-AI Integration Architecture

Connect new capabilities to the systems you depend on.

Design a credible bridge between legacy systems and AI-enabled capabilities, with explicit data access, integration and operational boundaries.

Most clients start with Solution & Transition Architecture.

What you receive

The result of this engagement.

  1. A bridge architecture and integration option rationale.
  2. Data-flow, access and interface designs with operating constraints.
  3. A transition and implementation handoff for the agreed scope.

When this helps

Recognise the situation.

  • AI agents need to act in your core systems, not only read from them, and you must control what they can change.
  • AI features need access to legacy business data or functions.
  • A complete core rewrite is neither justified nor feasible.
  • Teams need a design across APIs, events, documents and retrieval pipelines.

How it works

Evidence appropriate to the question.

Understand the constraints

Establish source systems, business semantics, access restrictions and operating requirements.

Design the bridge

Compare abstraction, API, event/CDC, retrieval and document-ingestion approaches where relevant. For agents that change records, define permitted actions, validation, retries and when human approval is needed.

Prepare the transition

Specify boundaries, failure handling, ownership and the sequence needed for implementation.

Scope & responsibility

Agree the scope and depth. Keep the boundaries clear.

Scope of the engagement

The design is tailored to the legacy estate and intended AI capability. Relevant source-system, data and security expertise is agreed for the engagement.

Limits of reliance

Sparkling does not implement pipelines or operate the resulting platform. A bridge does not remove the need to validate data meaning, permissions and source-system limits.

Who does what. A named senior architect leads the work and owns the integrated recommendation. Specialists in security, data, platforms, integration or AI governance join where agreed. Your teams and partners build and run the system. You keep the final business and acceptance decisions.

The agreed scope of the engagement sets the coverage, deliverables, responsibilities, timing and fixed fee. Any change to the scope is agreed in writing.

Questions

Before you book.

Does this assume retrieval-augmented generation is the answer?

No. The integration approach follows the use case, data semantics, operating constraints and alternatives.

What's the decision in front of you?

Tell us the situation and what you intend to commit to. 25 minutes on Teams, no preparation needed. If this scope is not the right fit, we will say so.

Book a 25-minute call