Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming businesses through enhanced productivity, deeper data insights, and more effective decision-making. However, AI applications can require significant development, which is time-consuming and costly. Businesses that lack the budget or resources to hire a team of software engineers risk being left behind and missing out on significant benefits.
Low code AI is changing that by making automation more accessible, flexible, and scalable. This guide breaks down everything you need to know about low code AI and highlights how it can help your business.
Short on Time? Here’s a Brief Overview
-
Low code AI is a development approach that requires little coding to build AI-powered applications, including automated workflows and data analysis pipelines.
-
Low code AI platforms offer drag-and-drop interfaces, customizable templates, integrated development environments, and pre-built AI models to make creating AI applications easy.
-
Employees with minimal coding experience can use low code AI tools. No-code AI tools are also available for non-technical employees without coding experience.
-
Low code AI is faster and cheaper than traditional AI development. It reduces the time to deployment and empowers employees from across your company to build AI-driven solutions to business problems.
What Is Low code AI?
Low code AI combines low code development and AI-powered automation.
Low code development is a way to create custom apps and workflows with minimal coding. It uses visual tools like drag-and-drop builders, pre-made templates, and interactive components.
AI-powered automation involves using artificial intelligence or similar technologies, like machine learning, to handle tasks and uncover insights that are hard for humans to spot. These processes can run entirely on their own or include human involvement.
In a nutshell, low code AI is an approach to building AI-driven automations and analyses that doesn’t require extensive coding. It enables semi-technical and non-technical employees within your business to create custom AI-powered applications.
How Low code AI Differs from Traditional Methods
Traditional, or “full-code,” methods of developing AI-powered applications and workflows require extensive coding, often in multiple programming languages. This demands a team of software engineers, which significantly increases the cost and timeline of every project.
Low code AI is more accessible, faster, and cheaper. Employees with little to no coding experience can design workflows using the visual design tools available in low code platforms.
While you may need to lean on developers for customizations and integrations, your non-technical employees can do most of the work building low code automations. As a result, low code platforms enable teams to iterate more quickly and shorten time to product deployment.
Key Elements of Low Code AI Platforms
Low-code AI platforms offer a wide range of tools to help you build workflow automations, data analyses, and AI-powered applications. Key elements are:
-
Reusable templates. Low code platforms include templates for common AI functions, like data analyses and predictive modeling. You can customize these templates with your own data and software integrations.
-
Drag-and-drop interfaces. Users can select triggers, outcomes, data fields, and other components from a menu and drop them onto an intuitive design interface to build custom applications.
-
Integrated development environment. While low code platforms don’t require much coding, they enable you to adjust your applications and workflows with custom code. This unlocks deep customization and enables low code integrations with your business’s existing software.
-
Pre-built AI models. Some low code platforms include pre-built AI models for data analysis, natural language processing, or generative text. These ready-to-run models speed up application development.
Low code vs. No-Code AI
While low code AI is much simpler than traditional AI development, it still requires some coding experience. That’s not the case for no-code AI, which relies entirely on visual interfaces and pre-built components to help non-technical employees craft AI-powered applications.
Low-code and no-code platforms have many similarities, but a key difference is that no-code platforms often don’t accept code and, thus, are less customizable. No-code AI tools are best for non-technical users who need to build basic AI tools for internal processes or design a minimum viable product.
The Benefits of Low Code AI
Let’s look more closely at some of the standout advantages of low code AI.
-
Accelerated development: Low code AI empowers your employees to design and build the AI workflows and data analyses they need. Instead of waiting months for developers to be available, teams can quickly prototype, iterate, and launch AI-powered applications.
-
Reduced costs: Software engineers are expensive, so using low code AI tools can help you slash development costs. Once deployed, automated workflows can also enhance productivity, helping your business realize an even greater return on investment.
-
Empowered teams: Since low code AI is accessible to non-technical employees, more members of your business can contribute to building AI-driven solutions to real business problems. For example, your sales team can build automations to help them generate more leads, and your customer service team can leverage AI to respond to customers more quickly.
-
Enhanced scalability and flexibility: Low code AI solutions can grow with your business over time as needs change and complexity increases. For example, you can easily add new datasets into existing workflows or build integrations for new software your business adopts.
-
Improved data insights: Many low code AI platforms include pre-built models for analyzing data, enabling your teams to draw insights that aren’t possible from spreadsheets. That, in turn, promotes better strategic decision-making across your business.
How CLEVR Supports Low code AI
CLEVR serves as a strategic partner for businesses looking to leverage low code AI.
We work with your company to identify opportunities for low code AI and use platforms like Mendix to build AI solutions tailored to your needs. Through data value analysis, we help pinpoint opportunities to unlock the full potential of your data, ensuring that AI-driven workflows integrate smoothly with existing systems like Siemens, SAP, Salesforce, IBM and more.
CLEVR supports your business through every stage—from identifying opportunities to implementing AI solutions—and ensure that your AI products continue to grow and adapt in the future.
To find out more about how CLEVR can help you transform your business with AI, explore our data science offering.
Final Thoughts on Low Code AI
Low code AI can help your business achieve automation and better harness data without requiring expensive and lengthy software development. Visual interfaces and pre-built AI models are accessible to non-technical employees, empowering them to build the solutions they need.
Want to know more about how low code works and how it can help your business succeed? Check out our comprehensive guide to low code.
FAQs
What’s the best low code AI platform?
We at CLEVR believe Mendix is the best low code AI platform because it includes highly customizable templates, an intuitive workflow builder, and pre-built AI models from Google Cloud.
Can I create AI without coding?
Yes. Many no-code AI tools — such as Akkio, Obviously AI, and DataRobot — don’t require coding to create AI-powered automations and data analyses.
What can low code AI do?
Low code AI is highly flexible to meet your business’s needs. For example, you could use low code AI to design automated workflows that eliminate repetitive tasks, such as digitizing data from documents. You could also use low code AI to build data analysis pipelines or produce reports that help you synthesize your business data and make strategic decisions.