Generative artificial intelligence startup Writer Inc. today launched a new AI Studio platform, a suite of development tools that will allow both technical and non-technical business users to build AI apps and workflows quickly and easily.

The new studio platform pulls together multiple tools for users to quickly build these workflows and apps depending on their skill level. The first of which is a no-code tool that allows non-technical business users to easily build apps that automate AI workflows, generate assets or create chatbots that can answer questions based on company data.

For more technical users, Writer offers an open-source framework that allows more technical users to quickly build feature-rich apps in a visual editor with full-code backends and provides them with endpoints to Writer’s application programming interface.

“We want to empower the different types of builders in companies,” Sam Julien, director of developer relations told SiliconANGLE in an interview. “We’ve been working with companies for several years and building applications with them, kind of in a bespoke way. This new product is opening that door up to enable the customers themselves and their developers to build on top of a platform and unlock the ability to build many applications quickly at scale, rather than having to fully rely on a service for it.”

However, many enterprise businesses struggle to build AI-powered applications internally, Julien added. In a recent survey, Writer discovered that only 10% of companies reported that they had a high confidence that they could build high-quality AI solutions in-house. This meant that out of those surveyed by the company, many left their AI-enabled applications in the dustbin.

Since 2020, Writer has worked with more than 250 enterprise companies, including big names such as professional services company Accenture plc, cloud storage provider Dropbox Inc. and French personal care company L’Oreal S.A. to help them build apps on the company’s full-stack, generative AI platform. Now that platform, which includes access to Writer’s Palmyra large language model family, is being expanded with these tools to make it possible for other enterprise workers to easily make their own in-house AI apps.

Writer Framework, the open-source visual engine for building AI apps with low code, being released today will make it easy for technical users to quickly make applications by building their UI and hook them up to an LLM. It is a fast user interface builder that also generates Python code.

“What you can do is very quickly build out a UI, put together the event handlers, code that you want to run, any prompts that you want to run, and just make something. Then deploy it with a command,” Julien said. “It basically takes what’s possible with the no-code side, but adds this whole new layer of flexibility and control.”

Writer Framework editing the Python backend code.

The code editor is based on Microsoft Corp.’s Monaco code editor, which is the foundation of Visual Studio code and lots of other in-browser editors, so it should be already familiar to many developers. Julien added that there is no delay between code changes when editing in the visual UI editor and the code, so there will be very few headaches for software engineers. It also allows developers to connect with their favorite coding environment.

The framework is the result of Writer’s acquisition of the open-source project Streamsync, also announced today.

“Streamsync started as a wild idea, said Ramiro Medina, former chief executive of Streamsync, who has joined Writer as engineering manager. “I wanted to make building data apps quick and easy for any developer. With Writer, we can push that vision further by bringing AI capabilities to the types of tools developers know and love.”

In addition to the no-code editor and low-code framework in AI Studio, Writer is also opening up a software development kit and Writer API endpoints for developers to extend its platform for integration directly into apps and services. With flexible API endpoints and the SDK, developers can write with Python and TypeScript to bolt on AI-enabled capabilities for their already existing apps with ease.

Images: Pixabay, Writer