The strongest offerings from low-code and no-code vendors will combine the benefits of visual developer interfaces with generative AI models, thus ideally allowing the user to choose between using natural language or dragging visual components to refine results, according to IDC research manager Michele Rosen.
“Generative AI can also produce text and multimedia assets for developers. And no-code and low-code vendors can provide chat interfaces to help assist developers throughout the app creation process,” Rosen said.
Microsoft’s low-code offering, Power Apps, already provides ChatGPT-based functionalities after the addition of Copilot, including a chat interface that allows for the creation of a simple application via a chat interface.
The resulting application can also contain an instance of ChatGPT for its end users, said Ryan Cunningham, vice president of Microsoft Power Apps.
“Addition of generative AI to Copilot serves two use cases: one is to help speed up development cycles and the other is to add generative AI to the applications created,” Cunningham said.
Microsoft’s Power Apps, according to Cunningham, uses the natural language processing aspect of generative AI to empower business users.
"The generative AI capabilities give business users the power to create applications. These users know what they would need in an application for their respective business departments but didn’t study computer science or coding,” Cunningham said. Microsoft is an investor in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
