At the TVH IT Talks 205, Greg Van Dorpe (Low-Code Offering Lead) shared ACA’s view on the current IT landscape with a room of engaged participants. He highlighted the realities many teams recognise: growing expectations, talent shortages and the struggle to balance innovation with keeping existing systems running. It sparked a broader conversation about how organizations can modernize more sustainably.
Across industries, organizations rely on systems that have grown organically over many years. While these systems provide stability, they can slow down innovation when changes are difficult or expensive to implement. Traditional custom development remains essential for big, complex and mission-critical applications, but it is not always the most efficient approach for every type of solution.
SaaS platforms offer speed and out-of-the-box capabilities, although they can introduce limitations or high customization costs. The challenge is finding the right balance.
At ACA, we don’t see Low-Code as a replacement for custom development. Instead, we combine both approaches to fit the problem at hand:
This combination gives organizations the flexibility to innovate where it matters, while keeping long-term cost and complexity under control.
Enterprise-grade Low-Code platforms enable teams to:
In our projects, Low-Code is particularly valuable for:
The principle is simple: keep the core stable and clean, innovate at the edge, and use engineering effort where it has the most impact.
AI plays an increasingly important role in modern software development. Greg highlighted how GenAI can help analyse legacy systems, support documentation and accelerate development. According to Gartner, by 2027 GenAI tools will be used to explain legacy business applications and generate appropriate replacements, potentially reducing modernization costs by up to 70%.
The rise of AI Copilots is quite overwhelming this year. So what is the real value they currently bring?
A Gartner report from 2025 shows that AI Co-Pilots deliver a productivity boost (5-20%) but introduce new risks due to still being "uncontrollable & unpredictable. Introducing a new level of complexity in maintaining a cohesive and manageable code base when developing with more than one developer on a project.
A key topic in the session was Agentic AI, autonomous AI agents capable of performing tasks or making decisions. While the technology is promising, most pilot projects still face challenges around reliability, orchestration and governance.
According to an MIT report from mid 2025, 95% of agentic AI pilot projects fail to reach production or show measurable ROI. Meanwhile, the 5% that make it are making millions.
At ACA, we take a practical approach:
The biggest impact happens where Low-Code and AI strengthen each other. Greg demonstrated how OutSystems, as an AI-first development platform, acts as a true Swiss army knife for IT teams thanks to:
An AI-first & Low-Code approach also requires transformation: real product teams, careful technology choices to avoid lock-in and strong governance to prevent Shadow IT/AI and ensure data security. One conclusion stood out: while these technologies reshape IT, the role of skilled IT and design professionals remains crucial for delivering high-quality and secure solutions.