Last month, Evoke Technologies published a report that looked at whether Low Code technology is living up to expectations. As we head into 2024, Evoke wanted to understand more about low code and AI and what they mean for business.
For example, has low-code delivered success for businesses? Is AI seen as a threat and replacement technology or an opportunity for even greater things? 83% of respondents believe that low-code is living up to the promises made for it. 90% of respondents believe that low-code decreases application development timescales.
What might have been interesting was for Evoke to have added a qualitative element to understand why the 10% did not see a reduction and why the 17% believed it did not live up to the promises.
About the report
The report is based on a survey of 250 tech leaders at UK companies. At 19 pages in length, it provides an introduction and seven short sections.
- Low Code is living up to its promises.
- Low Code is used for professional and fusion development to build mission-critical applications.
- Low Codes impact on development timescales
- Barriers to increasing the use of Low Code
- A question of experience
- Strategies to increase the use of Low Code
- What AI means for Low Code development
Each section consists of data visualizations with some descriptive text. The authors decided, presumably because of the sample size, not to break down the responses by industry or company size. All responses were from organisations with at least 500 people and at least £50m in revenue that have also invested in a low code platform.
Challenges of low code
It is not all plain sailing for low-code platform users. 47.6% struggled to get started effectively after investing in a low-code platform. There are other challenges with security (79.2%), scalability (78%) and platform license pricing (71.2%), the top three.
Other barriers to adoption include a lack of a C-Suite sponsor (54.4%), and 52% feel their development teams don’t want to adopt low-code.
What will be interesting is whether these change next year in a follow-up report. This is not a follow-up report, though and such trending information will hopefully appear next year. One sometimes forgets that generative AI is so new that few surveys included it last year. It was only with the launch of ChatGPT that it came to prominence and into general awareness.
Low-code Strategies
The report also looks at the strategies that organisations have already taken and those they intend to take. 44% have hired experienced developers, and 41.2% outsource to partners. In the future, 28% intend to train developers, 28% expect to hire, and only 27.2% expect to train non-develop staff.
Generative AI could change this, though. 74% believe that generative AI capabilities in Low Code platforms will turbocharge Low Code development. Gary Drenik, CEO of Prosper Business Development, wrote in a recent Forbes article, “The synergy between AI and low code is transformative, democratizing coding and expanding the horizons of software development.”
It is a view that Evoke shares and believes it can offer a solution. Adrian Bignall, who leads International Sales for Evoke Technologies, said: “This research shows that companies will be looking to Low Code in the future and that choosing the right partner is a vital component on their Low Code adventure. Low Code is a core specialism into which we have poured tremendous resources and developed deep expertise. We are ready for the future demand and the rise of AI in Low Code.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Low-code is a mature technology and delivers benefits. It has taken a while, though, to achieve this. Generative AI offers an even greater promise, though not without risks that need mitigation, such as privacy, ethics and its carbon footprint.
In their conclusion, the authors state, “As AI improves and plays an ever more important role in Low Code, we can expect support issues to be resolved more quickly, and code suggestions to be more prescient. Over time, Low Code platforms and AI should continue to improve developer productivity and dramatically reduce the development lifecycle.”
Evoke and other vendors are leveraging AI to further enhance their low-code platforms, making it easier for organisations to reap the benefits. In closing, what is surprising is that organisations are not yet looking at the benefits of AI+lowcode for citizen developers. It is an area that may rise in prominence once the AI is proven.
Is there an element of job protectionism by IT teams? Does AI offer the promise that the wider business, who understand their functional requirements best, can use AI directly? Or will it still require the technical and governance oversite that IT can provide?
