Oracle Corp. said today it’s enhancing the capabilities of its low-code application development platform Oracle APEX, infusing it with a generative artificial intelligence-powered assistant, among other things.

The update is all about simplifying and speeding up the process of application development. Using the new APEX AI assistant, developers will be able to build new apps using natural language prompts, Oracle says. By specifying whatever capabilities and components they require, APEX will automatically generate the required Structured Query Language statements needed to create them.

Oracle said the APEX AI assistant effectively eliminates the need for developers to remember table names, while also giving them the ability to add a conversational interface to any application they create.

APEX is a no-cost feature that’s available to every Oracle Database customer, including those using the cloud-hosted Oracle Autonomous Database service. It does away with the need for developers to write basic application code with a declarative approach that speeds up the process of creating apps by up to 20 times. On average, Oracle says, developers can get away with writing less than 1% of the code they would normally write to create an enterprise app.

The apps that can be created using Oracle APEX can integrate advanced generative AI capabilities. For instance, when using the service in combination with the AI Vector Search features found in Oracle Database 23ai, users will be able to create AI apps with integrated semantic search for documents, images and other kinds of unstructured data.

In addition to supporting natural language prompts, which are translated into SQL queries, Oracle APEX’s new assistant goes further by explaining existing code and suggesting bug fixes that can be implemented in a single click. This frees developers from mundane tasks, so they can focus on creating bespoke application features, Oracle said. It also supports the easy integration of conversational AI interfaces within any application, enabling developers to provide a richer experience for users without having to build the generative AI components themselves.

Mike Hichwa, Oracle’s senior vice president of software development, said he has firsthand experience of the hassles faced by developers when they absorb themselves in an application codebase.

“I know how challenging it can be to remember table names, column names and syntax I don’t frequently use,” he said. “Having an AI assistant to determine column names contextually, JOINS and generate complex syntax is a real game changer.”

Early adopters of the new APEX platform include Trailcon Leasing Inc., which manages an extensive fleet of more than 30,000 trucks spread throughout the U.S. To manage this fleet more effectively, it built the Trailcon 360 app using Oracle APEX, taking advantage of its AI-powered document understanding capabilities. The app provides customers with real-time geo-location and telematics data for predictive maintenance, and also integrates the ability to create and download invoices.

“Oracle APEX and OCI enables the IT Solutions team at Trailcon to continue to be agile and keep providing the data services our customers can rely on,” said Giovanni Cani, vice president of IT delivery at Trailcon. “This is far simpler than other low-code solutions.” He added that he’s interested to see what the upcoming versions of APEX will bring, specifically around AI capabilities and process optimization.

Oracle said the latest edition of Oracle APEX is available to all eligible customers starting today, and it will be showcasing its newest features at the dedicated APEX Conference at ODTUG Kscope24 in Nashville July 14-18.

Photo: Oracle