How GenAI in Low-Code Platforms Can Transform the Enterprise

In response to increasing business pressure, organizations are seeking faster outcomes and impact from their technology investments to stay competitive. This means businesses must be prepared to instill intelligence, AI and automation throughout their organization with a culture of continuous learning and transformation.

A key part of this effort involves upskilling all levels of staff in areas like low-code app development, which is becoming prevalent across industries as finding and securing traditional developer talent has become increasingly difficult.

This new wave of development enables organizations to cultivate more agile workflows and expedite their operations, especially as IDC forecasts a demand for 750 million net new applications by next year. To put it into perspective, that’s around 650,000 apps built every day over the past three years — more than have been built in the last half century.

But while the most intricate and technically challenging apps will continue to be built by professional developers, the bulk of this app demand will be seen in areas that require lower complexity. This is where citizen developers can be most impactful.

Addressing the Developer Shortage Crisis

Software developers will be one of the top four in-demand professions in the U.S. over the next 10 years, with more than 400,000 new job openings projected during that time frame, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Due to this global tech talent demand, the world doesn’t have enough software developers to write those 750 million predicted new apps. While organizations are feeling pressure to stay competitive in a digital-first world, not enough developers are available to help them rapidly innovate and sustain their competitive edge. In addition, the global tech talent shortage means IT teams everywhere are overwhelmed and understaffed.

As part of the growing shift to low-code technology, companies are turning to citizen developers, which empowers key business users to rapidly build and deploy solutions, to spin up apps and solutions that help them solve their most pressing challenges and reduce pressure on short-staffed IT departments.

Citizen developers can help organizations of all sizes launch new applications faster and more easily, reduce time and expenses and automate the syncing of corporate data. And since the workers who turn into citizen developers are often closer to the day-to-day work, they can approach solutions in a different way, leading to unexpected innovation.

In this landscape, we see low-code proficiency becoming the equivalent of Microsoft Office on resumes today: a requirement rather than a differentiator.

The Transformative Role of AI in Low-Code, No-Code

Low-code and no-code platforms have helped users create their own software applications without much, or any, coding skills. But it’s clear that app development will finally become democratized when paired with generative AI as usage surges among workers of every job title and level.

By pairing low-code platforms and generative AI, anyone can create automations and apps without coding skills, and experienced developers can speed up development processes and initial setup, leading to higher efficiency and lower IT backlogs.

In addition, the promise of citizen developers will finally materialize, allowing companies to tap into a goldmine for innovation and productivity.

A business analyst, for example, who understands a company's challenges and constraints could use AI-powered low-code platforms to automate operational processes in ways that were not feasible before. Instead of typing code, employees will be able to verbally tell tools what they want, and the tools will be intelligent enough to create an app and execute the command — similar to digital assistants.

On the other hand, the highly skilled IT worker who knows how to prompt the AI in specific ways could see massive efficiency and velocity gains in productivity.

And one of the most salient potential benefits of generative AI will be its ability to accelerate the low-code to no-code journey for businesses.

See more: How Low-Code Solutions Save Time and Money in the Digital Workplace

Moving From a Low-Code to No-Code Future

As generative AI matures within the enterprise, we’ll inevitably see organizations move toward a no-code future.

Generative AI powered no-code is a development method for people who have no coding skills at all or if their project doesn't require it. Beyond simply providing shortcuts, no-code uses declarative programming to create applications based on what the user wants. Essentially, this means that no-code development lets users avoid coding completely, telling the system what you need and then allowing the system to build the application itself.

No-code is all about the citizen developer being able to create simple yet effective apps on their own to automate more of the business. When combined with generative AI, no-code platforms allow users to reference pre-built models and templates to help them spin up sophisticated applications without any coding skills.

Until recently, it was an accepted fact that no-code solutions were best utilized in building simpler applications. But as no-code platforms evolve with generative AI, organizations will more regularly see the creation of more complex and scalable applications with no-code platforms. Here, extensive integrations and powerful, advanced workflows will become table stakes.

The result is a more efficient organization where employees with limited coding skills can create sophisticated applications, and software development is easily accessible across every department and persona — leading to better features, capabilities and value for end-users.

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