Google LLC said today that its no-code software development platform AppSheet Automation is now generally available, helping people with zero coding skills automate many of the mundane business tasks they perform on a daily basis.

Google acquired AppSheet in January 2020, doing so in order to target a slice of the larger “low-code development market” that Gartner Inc. has forecast will be worth as much as $17 billion in 2022.

AppSheet Automation was announced in preview at Google’s virtual Cloud Next OnAir event in September. Amit Zavery, Google’s general manager of platforms, told SiliconANGLE at the time that AppSheet Automation was designed to “make it easy and simple to build applications without writing any code, which is different from low-code.”

The service is designed to help enterprises reduce their IT backlogs and save money by eliminating the need for workers to perform manual tasks, AppSheet Product Manager Prithpal Bhogill wrote in a blog post today. He said tasks such as manually entering receipt data into a spreadsheet or tracking down paper copies of documents can be very time-consuming and that time could be better spent on more productive tasks.

“Unstructured data such as invoices, receipts and W-9s can be automatically extracted from documents, all thanks to Google Cloud’s Document AI,” Bhogill said. “Process automations such as these help organizations to reclaim time and talent spent on repetitive tasks, empowering a company’s talent to spend more time on strategic and impactful work.”

Bhogill said the benefits of AppSheet Automation are apparent from a recent survey of users, which found that 64% were able to focus more of their time on “high-impact work” instead of manual tasks.

Google rolled out a number of early adopters that claim to have seen great results from using the new tools. They include Globe Telecom Inc., a provider of telecommunications services in the Philippines, which said it has built more than 50 business apps using AppSheet in just eight weeks.

“We’ve always been on the lookout for grassroots innovations among our employees at Globe, said Globe Telecom Chief Information Officer Carlo Malana. “It is something that we’re very keen on cultivating for our people. AppSheet gave us this flexibility.”

Google is also planning to add a new feature that will enable users to embed rich AppSheet views in Gmail to perform approvals on the go. That feature will arrive soon, Bhogill said.

Here’s more from Google’s Zavery, speaking with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, at last year’s Cloud Next OnAir event:

Image: Google