Are generative AI and no-code development becoming synonymous? It would appear to be. Both allow you to quickly generate code by specifying certain routines.
But there are also important differences: generative AI helps professional developers, while low-code and no-code development is more for non-developers. Clearly, non-developers probably won’t be playing around with AI-generated code anytime soon.
A recent Microsoft survey of 2,000 IT leaders found that 87% of CIOs and IT professionals said bringing AI to low-code platforms would help them. This is “a trend we see in all low-code tools,” notes Richard Riley, general manager of Microsoft’s Power Platform.
“Another way to automatically generate code”
“Generative AI is definitely emerging as another way to automatically generate code,” says Dr. James Fairweather, chief innovation officer at Pitney Bowes. “She shows that she can be a great help in bridging the gap between a person’s intention and the computer programming needed to solve a task.”
However, software development is a much more complex experience than just producing code, Fairweather adds. “Generative capabilities are just a small subset of the topics that will need to be modeled for AI to play a bigger role in software development,” he points out. “Every software system has additional considerations – like logical and physical system architecture, data modeling, build and deployment engineering, and maintenance and management activity – that still seem way beyond current capabilities of generative AI.”
Ultimately, AI will serve “as a means to enable low-code and no-code environments,” says Leon Kallikkadan, vice president of technology at Atrium. “I also think that with the arrival of other partnerships, low-code and no-code will become more and more possible. It will be a phased approach in which, as you , the human developer, build, an AI component will begin to create a future vision or step Long term possibilities depend on the depth of integration, but yes it is possible to go that far and become a “low-code” or “no-code” environment.
AI is more suitable for developments requiring high-level expertise
Both low-code and no-code solutions may be suitable for non-technical users. “Low-code is more for non-coders,” says Jesse Reiss, CTO of Hummingbird. “It gives organizations the ability to re-imagine business processes without the need for deep IT expertise. may lack the staff or resources to support their business activities.”
Generative AI is best suited for development work requiring high-level expertise, experts say. “For building apps, I don’t think it’s about low-code, no-code environments as we currently imagine them,” says Louis Landry, engineer at Teradata. “Building things always requires code. Rather, it’s about simplifying and speeding up the coding process for the programmer.”
Generative AI is used to “quickly deliver code that supports existing systems or infrastructure,” says Reiss. “What I see is that the companies that are able to get the most out of generative AI are the ones that have the framework or the underlying infrastructure to support the use case. They are able to speed up, facilitate and simplify their operations or integrate AI into existing product lines.”
Nevertheless, generative AI can help make low-code more no-code. One of the main benefits of generative AI is its ability to bridge the gap between ‘low-code’ and ‘no-code’ environments,” says Oshri Moyal, co-founder and CTO of Atera. “By providing pre-built models and code templates, generative AI allows developers to build sophisticated applications without the need for deep coding skills. This democratizes the development process and allows more people to participate in the development of technological solutions.”
Source: “ZDNet.com”