KPMG, Rhino.ai expand alliance to speed government legacy system modernization

KPMG is pushing AI deeper into government modernization, betting that agencies will pay for faster legacy-system work when the pitch is secure, auditable and directly awardable. The alliance with Rhino.ai is built around a simple pressure point inside public-sector IT: older systems are expensive to maintain, slow to change and hard to replace without careful migration planning, data cleanup, architecture decisions, security and user adoption.

KPMG LLP and Rhino.ai expanded their partnership on April 22 to deliver AI-powered capabilities that make modernization faster, more secure and more cost-effective. Rhino.ai said the co-developed KPMG ARMD solution received Department of War validation through the Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace, which makes it directly awardable. For KPMG, that matters because government buyers do not just want automation. They want procurement discipline, privacy controls, explainability and a paper trail strong enough to survive scrutiny.

The alliance also gives a window into where the work is likely to go inside KPMG. Public-sector modernization blends advisory, implementation, assurance and operational support, which can create cross-functional staffing opportunities across the firm. It also raises the value of professionals who can talk about controls and compliance as comfortably as they talk about models and automation. In practice, that means the first wave of work is likely to center on the most painful parts of legacy estates: mapping systems, documenting hidden processes and deciding what can be moved, reworked or retired.

KPMG first announced the Rhino.ai alliance on October 16, 2023, saying it would accelerate legacy portfolio modernization and connect clients to platforms including Appian, Microsoft PowerApps, OutSystems, ServiceNow and Unqork. Rhino.ai says its platform is designed to reconstruct hidden business logic across code, SaaS, workflows and integrations, while its Discovery offering can generate functional documentation, technical architecture mapping and business-rules extraction for modernization roadmaps. That combination points to a specific kind of AI value: not replacing whole agencies, but stripping away the manual work that slows migration and drives up contractor costs.

The move also fits KPMG’s broader alliances strategy. The firm says it has market-leading alliances with major software and services vendors, and its Microsoft alliance emphasizes risk, compliance and security alongside modern data foundations and AI. For KPMG staff, that signals where the firm sees leverage in the market: government clients are increasingly buying modernization with governance attached, and the firms that can deliver both will be the ones that shape the next round of public-sector transformation.