Airtable, AI-powered no-code application generator (with Omni)

Create apps without coding, by prompting AI Omni

Airtable lets you create functional, professional applications without having to know how to code. All you have to do is describe your needs, and Airtable's AI, named Omni, will put its software genius to work to build you the app of your dreams. Including interfaces, databases, workflows and automations.

You can, of course, tweak and evolve your app the same way: by dictating your instructions to the AI.

Founded in 2012 in San Francisco by Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad and Emmett Nicholas, Airtable originally consisted of an app that endowed an Excel-style spreadsheet with database-specific functionality.

Starting with the generative AI boom at the end of 2022, the tool evolved into an AI-based application generator.

Where its main competitors, such as Claude Code, generate code and leave the technical aspects to the user, Airtable remains committed to simplification, making software engineering accessible to the general public.

Airtable offers features for automatically creating and managing the infrastructure for deploying the generated code, and for scaling up without knowing anything about it.

Features: software generation and task automation via agents

Airtable combines features such as

• Custom software and application generation.
• Creation of automatic agents to manage tasks such as document analysis, web search and image generation.
• Creation of data visualization, with tools such as spreadsheets, kanbans, Gantt charts, timelines, calendars, image galleries, forms, etc.

Airtable is one of the leaders in its field.

One of Airtable's strong points is the long list ofthird-party applications with which it can collaborate, via their APIs: Github, Twilio, Slack, Jira, Youtube, Snowflake, Google Calendar, Outlook, Salesforce, Zendesk, Stripe, WordPress... It also knows how to be generative template agnostic: it'll let you choose between OpenAI, Gemini, Meta, Anthropic (LLM) templates.

A tool for all types of professionals

Airtable mentions all kinds of professions that will benefit from its services:

• Product management, marketing and sales: Airtable can be used to develop stats, strategies, reports and dashboards.
• Project management, human resources, finance: Airtable can be used to manage inventories and the flow of work, skills and money, thanks to dedicated software.

Let's imagine a concrete use case: a company wants to create a survey to offer to its customers, then analyze the data to present the conclusions in the form of a report. Airtable will need to be given a context (a precise description of the company's activities, its products and its customers), then instructions on the software to be generated and the parameters of the expected report. Airtable will then take care of creating this software, then processing the responses and finally drawing up the report. In such cases, Airtable's advantage over the competition is its low cost: you don't need a €700-a-day coder, you get a tailor-made workflow for a modest fee.

On average, coders are not fans of this kind of solution, which doesn't offer them the level of control worthy of their skills. Airtable can nevertheless be useful for this savvy audience, for rapid prototyping in MVP mode, for testing an idea for a customer, and so on.

Easy-to-use software designed for non-computer specialists

Airtable's interface has been designed for novices, people who don't know how to write code. So you're bound to find it easy to use, since all you have to do is write your instructions in natural language, before examining the result.

As a start-up turned unicorn, Airtable has no shortage of resources, and its high-quality design and ergonomics ensure a pleasant user experience.

The Airtable environment also includes support services, a help center and detailed documentation. In short, it's easy to find help.

Affordable subscriptions for pros

Airtable is billed on a monthly subscription basis.

There is a "Free" offer, for testing purposes, but this is severely limited in terms of functionality.

The next two pro packages are Team and Business, at $20 or $45 per person per month. For larger needs, a customized scale package is also available.

Airtable's appeal lies in its all-in-one simplicity: from the prompt to the infrastructure, the service really lets you create functional software even without knowing anything about code.

On the other hand, you need to know what you want: the more precise and detailed the description of the software to be generated, the more likely you are to get what you want. What's more, Airtable offers an impressive collection of templates ready to be adapted to your needs. These templates (application models) cover most of the needs known to the software industry, so it's highly likely that what you need already exists and just needs to be customized yourself.

The Free offer is so limited in terms of functionality, that you won't realize how powerful Airtable's service is until you've paid for at least one month's subscription.

For entrepreneurs who often have specific software engineering needs, Airtable is an invaluable tool!