How a No Code AI App Builder Helps You Create More Powerful Custom Business Software

In the not-so-distant past, developing custom software was a luxury only large corporations could afford. The high costs, lengthy development cycles, and need for specialized coding skills put it out of reach for most small businesses and startups. 

But the landscape is changing. The rise of no code app development platforms has leveled the playing field, empowering businesses of all sizes to create custom applications without breaking the bank or hiring an army of developers. 

And more people are taking notice. According to Grand View Research, The no code platform market size was estimated at USD 3.83 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 30.6% from 2024 to 2030.

No code platforms offer a fundamentally different approach to software development. Instead of writing complex code, these tools provide intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces, pre-built components, and customizable templates. This allows users to create and visualize their applications in real-time, using a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) approach. By eliminating the need for coding knowledge, no code platforms accelerate development cycles, reduce the risk of costly errors, and enable even non-technical team members to bring their ideas to life.

But the true power of no code lies in its ability to give entrepreneurs, business leaders, and domain experts—those who understand their industries and customers best—the freedom to create custom software solutions to grow their businesses. Innovation is no longer left for those with computer science degrees or large IT budgets. With no code, anyone with a great idea and the drive to see it through can build applications that improve core workflows, enhance customer experiences, and drive growth.

No code app builders allow organizations to respond quickly to changing market demands, test new ideas with minimal risk, and create tailored solutions that fit their unique workflows. By lowering the barriers to entry, these tools are fostering a culture of innovation and agility that's essential in today’s market. 

AI and no code app builders: A shared vision

The real magic happens when no code meets artificial intelligence (AI). While both technologies are powerful on their own, together, they amplify the no code development process, making it easier than ever to build smart, adaptable AI applications.

At their core, no code and artificial intelligence share a common goal: to make building software easier, more powerful, and accessible to a wider audience. No code provides the foundation, offering an intuitive way to build custom apps without writing a single line of code. AI then builds on that foundation, infusing applications with intelligence and automation. 

How AI can help you build no code apps

A study by Microsoft and LinkedIn reveals that more and more employees are struggling with the volume and pace of work. AI has become a go-to solution for many of them, with 78% of workers now bringing their own AI tools to work. Another 41% of leaders “extremely familiar with

AI” expect to redesign business processes from the ground up with artificial intelligence. This accelerated rate of AI adoption presents a huge opportunity for businesses to incorporate artificial intelligence into their workflows in two key ways: developer-focused and user-focused AI. 

Developer-focused AI acts as a smart assistant, suggesting features, optimizing layouts, and even generating code snippets based on the developer's intent. This helps streamline workflows, reduce trial and error, and accelerate development cycles. 

User-focused AI, on the other hand, is all about embedding intelligent capabilities directly into the application. This includes features like natural language processing (NLP), image recognition, and predictive analytics—all of which make applications more intuitive, responsive, and personalized to user needs.

The combination of developer-focused and user-focused artificial intelligence opens up a wide range of possibilities for businesses, allowing them to create applications that are powerful, easy to develop, and deeply tailored to their specific business requirements. This dual approach ensures that applications are optimized for both the development process and the end-user experience, leading to better adoption and satisfaction.

Generating ideas & jumpstarting app development

One of the most exciting use cases of AI in no code app development is its ability to generate ideas and inspire creativity. Glide started with a plain-text AI App Generator, which helped brainstorm app ideas.

That turned into an AI App Builder, which actually assembles a basic structure for your app. From there, you just have to tweak and customize instead of building the basic layout of your app from scratch.

The process is simple yet powerful. Begin with a plain English description of your app idea or the problem you're trying to solve. The AI App Generator analyzes your description, generating a tailored schema with suggested data structures and relationships and providing a concrete starting point for your app. The generator also proposes layouts and features based on your app's purpose and target audience. For example, if you're building a project management app, it might suggest features like task prioritization, deadline reminders, and collaborative commenting.

Apart from brainstorming ideas, no code AI app builders can provide a further head start by automating basic steps and prototyping your app’s framework, without requiring any coding knowledge. By simply describing your app idea in plain language, AI handles the heavy lifting of the initial setup, transforming your vision into a fully functioning mobile or web app. 

Based on your description, it can infer and display relations within the app, allow you to change your desired color theme, and generate relevant images to enhance the user-friendly interface. The AI-generated framework serves as a solid foundation that you can further refine to create an attractive and cohesive visual identity for your app, even if you don't have a background in UX/UI design. Now, instead of getting bogged down in the technicalities of coding and design, you can concentrate on perfecting your app's core features, user experience, and overall functionality.

Build native AI features into your apps  

Unlike other no code app builders that help you use AI to build your apps, with Glide AI, you can integrate powerful AI capabilities directly into your app, without the need for complex APIs or external tools. 

From automating data entry to performing complex calculations, and generating natural language summaries, you can easily add AI to your app’s core workflows via the Data Editor, Layout Editor, or Action Editor. One of Glide AI’s key abilities is transforming unstructured text into structured data like dates, numbers, boolean, or choice functions. This structured data can then be used in all sorts of tasks or to trigger further actions in your app.

Glide AI can also be used to extract information from images like receipts, process and categorize expenses, convert currencies, generate content from existing data, and transcribe audio recordings efficiently.

Most Glide AI features have an Input field where you must specify the information the AI should consider when generating its response, such as a question to answer, a prompt to complete, or data to analyze. You can also customize your app via the Instructions field, allowing you to shape the AI's output—adding context, aligning responses with your brand's tone, or specifying design requirements. 

Building a no code app with external AI integrations

While many of the best no code platforms offer a set of native AI capabilities, Glide also easily integrates with external AI services, such as OpenAI, to provide even more advanced AI functionality. By integrating with external tools, you can use the most powerful large language models and AI technologies within your apps, opening up a world of possibilities for intelligent automation and user interaction. 

With OpenAI's powerful language models, your app can interpret user queries, analyze sentiment, and generate human-like responses. For example, you can create a customer support chatbot that understands and responds to user inquiries, providing instant and accurate assistance 24/7. Or, you can build a content creation tool that generates articles, summaries, or product descriptions based on simple prompts.

For more data-heavy work, you can also build apps like sales dashboards and inventory management systems that extract insights from large datasets, automate data entry and categorization, or provide personalized recommendations based on user behavior and preferences.

Now, instead of relying on multiple disparate AI tools and systems, you can consolidate your AI-powered tools within your Glide apps. This centralization not only simplifies your technology stack but also reduces the risk of data silos and inconsistencies. It also gives you greater control over your organization’s AI usage, helping prevent shadow IT—the use of unauthorized software that can pose security risks.

The power of managed AI

Glide AI streamlines the integration process by managing complex backend operations, freeing up your time to focus on building great apps without worrying about the underlying infrastructure.

Glide's system automatically selects the best AI model for your specific use case, whether it's content generation, text extraction, or other functionalities. This automated selection ensures optimal performance and results, saving you time and effort in the development process.

Since Glide also handles the relationship with each AI provider, you get the benefit of a high-usage enterprise plan regardless of how many AI updates you’re using. This means you get faster processing time, as any prompts run through your Glide app will be automatically prioritized.

Plus, by storing AI prompt results at the app level, Glide ensures that each unique prompt is processed only once, regardless of the number of users interacting with your app. This shared caching mechanism reduces redundant processing, minimizes costs, and improves overall performance.

What apps can you create with a no code AI app builder?

From finance and logistics to HR and GTM processes, the impact of custom AI tools stretches far beyond generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Midjourney. Here are a few examples of the types of apps you can create with no code AI app builders:

Optimize your supply chain with an AI inventory management app

Managing inventory efficiently is a significant challenge for businesses, especially those dealing with multiple warehouses and varying market conditions. Unfortunately, traditional inventory tracking methods like spreadsheets often fail to provide real-time insights, leading to overstocking or stockouts, increased waste, and customer dissatisfaction.

Now, you can build an intelligent inventory management app that not only tracks stock levels in real-time but also predicts future demand based on historical data, market trends, and external factors.

For example, Cheese Meets Wine, a leading wine importer in Hong Kong, created an AI-powered app that manages inventory across multiple warehouses, monitors sales orders, and organizes them into shipments. The app even integrates with OpenAI to generate detailed wine descriptions, enabling staff to provide personalized recommendations to customers.

With these new insights, their team can make more informed purchasing decisions, negotiate better terms with suppliers, and adapt quickly to changing market conditions. 

Boost customer and employee satisfaction with an intelligent help desk

Traditional customer support help desks often struggle with high volumes of repetitive inquiries, which lead to long wait times and frustrated customers. By contrast, AI-powered help desks can efficiently handle routine inquiries, allowing human agents to focus on more complex and high-value interactions.

That’s exactly why Glide Expert Robert Petitto built an AI-powered, self-service IT Help Desk companion app where employees or customers can ask questions and receive instant, accurate answers. AI can help understand the context and intent behind user queries, provide relevant information, and suggest additional resources or escalation paths if needed. This quickly led to reduced IT ticket volume, taking the load off their support team and providing employees with faster resolution times. 

By analyzing past interactions and user feedback, these apps continuously improve their responses and anticipate common issues.

Build an AI-powered investor portal to enhance financial reporting

For businesses with multiple investors or complex financial structures, managing financial reporting is far from an easy task. Collecting data from various sources, creating reports, and ensuring accuracy and consistency can be time-consuming and error prone, while offering a poor user experience for all stakeholders. An AI-powered investor portal can help improve these core workflows and provide investors with easy, timely, and transparent access to key financial information.

Take Centerline Business Services’s AI-powered investor portal, for example. The portal serves as a centralized hub that aggregates and displays real-time investment data, analyzes complex financial information, and generates user-friendly performance summaries. Investors can access up-to-date information about their investments, view personalized performance metrics, and communicate directly with the management team.

By automating financial data collection and analysis, an AI-powered investor portal can reduce the time and effort required to create reports, freeing up resources for more strategic activities. It can also help improve data accuracy and consistency, reduce the risk of errors, and build trust with their investors.

Getting started with building AI no code apps 

As you get started on your no code journey, we have a wide range of resources and support to guide you along the way. 

Glide's AI App Designer is a great brainstorming partner for ideation and planning, understanding your business needs and objectives, and suggesting tailored app concepts and features. Glide also offers a variety of learning resources, including comprehensive documentation, video tutorials, and hands-on workshops. These resources cover everything from the basics of app building to advanced AI integration techniques, allowing you to learn at your own pace. If you prefer a more experiential approach, Glide's AI Playground allows you to test various scenarios, input data, and configurations and see how the AI model responds in real-time. 

Sometimes you need a solution fast or are simply too busy to build your own AI apps from the ground up. That's where Glide's expert community comes in. The Glide Experts Program connects you with experienced app developers who can provide guidance or help you integrate advanced AI workflows into your apps.

Whether you need help with a specific technical problem or want feedback on your app design, the Glide Experts are there to support you. If you’re ready to explore how no code and AI can transform your core business workflows, get started with Glide today.