Low-code solutions are dead. Long live low-code solutions

Low-code solutions are dead. Long live low-code solutions.

Think about why low/no-code solutions exist. They're an abstraction layer far easier to work with than code.

But that coupling of visuals and execution comes with limitations. It's a circle-to-square problem: tackling real-world digital complexity using a medium that is quite intentionally more simplified than the digital real world for human consumption.

The evolution of low-code tools has been one of clever solutions that enable designing logic in a way that doesn't require training on par with learning to code. No command lines to memorize, your options available visually for point-and-click. Syntax limited to Excel-like formulas (or C# formulas if you've had the misfortune of ending up on the Creatio platform 🤣).

Now enter AI — language and probability algorithms quite clever at interpreting what humans are asking for. And we have to ask: what is the value of adding prompting to existing low-code tools whose capabilities are limited by their primitive (by comparison) means of letting humans express their intent?

Don't misunderstand, I don't think the diagramming aspect of no-code design will disappear, this isn't an "everyone will vibe code" post. Those visual canvases are useful for people. But why build on top of the current limited-capability tools when LLMs open a world of no-code abstraction up to us? Limiting an LLM to, for example, the XML behind Flows is like tying one of its robot arms behind its back.

So there will still be diagramming and point-and-click interfaces for business processes with decision nodes, scheduling, and filtering logic. That can be deterministically written as code that becomes the control plane of the AI-generated code that can be injected via prompts within the workflow.

The visual layer captures intent. The code layer opens a world of possibilities. This will be an inflection point where the current no/low-code players will have to make a decision: pivot widely from their long-profitable strategy, or doom themselves to be dinosaurs in the space.