Introducing AWS App Studio, the fastest and easiest way to build apps

At AWS Summit New York, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc., announced AWS App Studio, a generative AI-powered service that uses natural language to build enterprise-class applications. Users simply describe the application they want, what it should do, and the data sources they want to integrate with, and in minutes, App Studio creates an application that would take a professional developer days to build from scratch. Modifying App Studio applications is easy with a point-and-click interface, and users also get instant guidance on how to complete a task by asking its generative AI assistant. App Studio opens up application development to technical professionals without software development skills (such as IT project managers, data engineers, and enterprise architects), enabling them to quickly build in-house applications that are secure and fully managed by AWS, eliminating the need for operational expertise. This allows users to focus on building applications that help solve business problems and increase productivity in their roles, while removing the burden of building and running applications.

Every company has internal processes and activities that employees manage daily to keep their organization running. Hospital supply teams track medical supplies to understand what’s in stock and order more when supplies run low; account managers at advertising agencies follow a specific workflow for designing, reviewing, and approving ads; and property managers monitor housing inventory and repairs needed at rental units. These processes are time-consuming and often managed through spreadsheets and documents that are difficult to maintain, error-prone, insecure, and difficult to scale to multiple users. Employees are much more effective when they can use a custom app tailored to these issues, making it easier to enter information, manage complex processes, and connect to trusted systems like Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) or Salesforce. Yet, development resources for building custom apps are limited, and as a result, many internal apps aren’t built. That’s why tech-savvy employees are turning to low-code tools to build their own apps. However, these tools come with their own challenges. Current low-code tools often have a steep learning curve, requiring platform-specific knowledge, and user-created applications often fail to meet their company’s security requirements, leading to their IT department shutting them down. These applications also struggle to scale as usage increases, forcing users to hand over hosting and running the applications to their company’s development team. This leaves many employees stuck between low-code solutions that don’t meet their needs and the ongoing tedious task of manually managing these processes via spreadsheets and documents.

AWS App Studio is the fastest, easiest way for people with some technical experience to build the types of enterprise-class apps that were previously only built by professional developers. App Studio’s generative AI-powered assistant eliminates the learning curve of typical low-code tools, speeding up the app development process and simplifying common tasks like user interface (UI) design, creating workflows, and app testing. For example, a user identifies specific data sources in their company that the app should connect to using a drop-down menu, then writes a basic prompt like “Build an app to track inventory in stores.” App Studio generates an outline to validate the user’s intent, then builds the app with a multi-page UI, data model, and business logic. The user can then ask clarifying questions like “How can I show an ‘approve’ button only to reviewers?” and App Studio provides detailed answers about how to make the change through a point-and-click interface. To test your app, users simply click the “generate data” button to create sample data that demonstrates how your app will handle real-time information. Users can also easily connect their app to internal data sources using built-in connectors for AWS (such as Amazon Aurora, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon S3) and Salesforce, along with hundreds of third-party services (such as HubSpot, Twilio, and Zendesk) using the Application Programming Interface (API) connector. With App Studio, users don’t have to think about the underlying code at all—App Studio takes care of all the deployment, operations, and maintenance. When your app is ready to be deployed, App Studio generates a custom URL that end users can access using existing enterprise authentication and role-based access controls.

“AWS App Studio opens up app development to a whole new set of developers, helping them build enterprise-class apps in minutes,” said Dilip Kumar, vice president of Applications at AWS. “Designed to meet the needs of the largest enterprise customers and fastest-growing startups, App Studio is the lifeblood of technical workers in every company. Now, using natural language, any user with some technical experience can simply describe the app they want to build, and App Studio takes care of the development process, delivering an app that workers can start using immediately. Never before has it been easier for technical professionals to build custom apps tailored to the unique needs of their company, ushering in a new world of productivity for companies of all sizes.”

Every app deployed through App Studio is highly secure, scalable, and efficient, so technical professionals can focus on innovation rather than app management. App Studio gives IT teams visibility into every app so they can easily track usage patterns, control user and data access, and set security controls to comply with corporate security policies. Building apps with App Studio is free, and customers pay only for the time employees spend using published apps, saving up to 80% compared to other low-code offerings. App Studio is available in preview today in US West (Oregon).