Airtable, a 10-year-old firm focused on customized apps, is launching Cobuilder, which uses AI to turn a concept into a customizable application “in seconds,” without the need for human coding. The debut adds to a rapidly expanding field of no-code platforms that help non-technical types develop software suitable for enterprise use. “Within the next five years, teams will build the vast majority of applications in-house, customizing them to transform their most critical workflows,” predicts Airtable co-founder and CEO Howie Liu. “To get there, knowledge workers who are closest to the work need to be empowered to build.”

Kelly O’Shaughnessy, Airtable’s product lead for Cobuilder, tells VentureBeat that the app generator has the potential to “transform workflows” when paired with today’s LLMs.

In a LinkedIn post, Liu says that Airtable has become “the easiest way to deploy the leading LLMs into departmental data and workflows.” Cobuilder evolves that approach by allowing the company to harness both third-party LLMs and internal data to create applications using natural language prompts.

Airtable addresses security concerns, assuring in a blog post that no customer data will be “used to train current or future LLMs.”

“Airtable plans to enhance Cobuilder’s capabilities, including the ability to incorporate existing company data from Airtable and embed AI automations within generated apps,” VentureBeat writes.

The Airtable blog post provides examples of Cobuilder functionality, including typing in “I’m a director for the next ‘Dune’ movie, and I need an app to manage my pre-production before filming begins in January 2025.”

The app would then generate a preview of a custom Airtable application in less than a minute, “enabling rapid ideation and iteration,” reports Maginative, emphasizing that “while the initial structure is AI-generated, users can modify and refine the app to better suit their specific needs” within the Cobuilder platform.

Airtable has raised $1.36 billion in funding and according to VentureBeat has a valuation of $11 billion. The Airtable website indicates that AWS, Walmart and Max are among those using the platform.