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Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence has been an integral part of the Mendix platform for many years, and we’ve only just started.

Mendix applies AI in two different ways:

  • AI-assisted development: Mendix offers developers AI-driven software development capabilities
  • AI-augmented applications: Mendix offers developers low-code tooling to infuse applications with AI

AI-assisted development

In 2019, Mendix introduced AI-augmented low-code development to the world with the release of a ‘bot’ that recommends the next best actions in logic flows. This bot is based on an AI/ML model trained on millions of those flows. Since then, more AI/ML bots were released as part of the Mendix platform, supporting developers building high-quality applications, fast.

With the advent of generative AI in 2022, the options to speed up and revolutionize the software development lifecycle (SDLC) have become even bigger.

Today, multiple AI capabilities are available to Mendix developers under one umbrella: Mendix AI Assistance (Maia).

Maia is our generative AI-powered assistant that provides guidance, assistance, and generation. Think of Maia as your friendly Mendix expert, augmenting the Mendix development experience by:

  • Answering questions
  • Automating tasks
  • Generating app components

Maia boosts productivity and accelerates development while ensuring consistency and best practices within your Mendix applications.

AI in (future) software development

We believe AI will continue to evolve and lead to many more opportunities to improve and revolutionize the SDLC. One thing will remain. Whatever level of automation will be achieved with AI using current and future generation capabilities in Mendix, human involvement will always be at the core of enterprise software development.

AI in the Mendix platform is designed to keep humans in control during every step. Developers are required to initiate what needs to be built, validate and tweak what is generated, and connect various pieces of the puzzle into an end-to-end solution. In short, they will supervise the build process from start to end.

AI in Mendix doesn’t just cover the build process. It brings business and IT together by applying intelligence in each phase of the SDLC, e.g., ideation, requirement management, scoping, and deployment. The platform also creates the conditions for rapid experimentation and iteration of early results, which is particularly relevant for the AI field.

A developer’s unique contribution, now and even more so in the future, lies in applying their expertise and creativity within and across generated pieces of functionality. With Mendix, developers can change and repackage AI-generated artifacts into full solutions and/or re-usable abstractions (building blocks). These building blocks can span multiple technologies and vendors without the typical integration issues that slow any project down.

Abstraction is one of the key principles underpinning the Mendix platform. This is important in the GenAI era. Generated code of unknown origin naturally creates trust issues.

There is value in transparency and observability that Mendix abstractions bring through making code constructs explicit via models and stable open frameworks vs. everything baked into unpredictable generated code.

Also, abstractions typically future-proof an application. Patterns stay the same, while APIs, languages, and packaged capabilities change and evolve.

In all of this, Mendix offers speed on the one hand and expressiveness on the other without sacrificing predictability and maintainability.

Learn more about AI-assisted development capabilities in Mendix

AI-augmented applications

Ultimately, AI is here to transform end-user experiences and achieve better business outcomes.

Mendix enables companies to develop context-aware, intelligent, and proactive Smart Apps, but in a low-code way. Our development platform is designed to remove the complexity of building enterprise-grade smart applications driven by artificial intelligence. With Mendix, you can harness the power of AI to deliver solutions with human-like intelligence, insight, and awareness without having to be an expert in artificial intelligence.

We help companies do this in several ways:

Generative AI: Mendix makes it easy to use Large Language Models (LLMs) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) within your applications to add intelligent experiences, including a chatbot or a conversational experience. You can use the GenAI model of your choice with our production-ready connectors. Ground the LLMs with your company-specific knowledge bases, using the RAG or ReAct setup which is available in the connector package.

Cognitive Services (from Amazon and other suppliers): There is a lot more to artificial intelligence than GenAI. Cognitive services use machine learning and artificial intelligence to perform tasks that mimic human decision making. These tasks include:

  • Understanding and processing natural language
  • Recognizing speech and images
  • Translating languages
  • Making decisions
  • Analyzing data to provide insights

It’s these types of tasks that can automate and streamline business processes. Mendix easily connects to any third-party service to interact with hosted AI/ML models from Google, Microsoft, AWS, Abby, etc

Machine Learning (Machine Learning Kit): Mendix is the first and only low-code platform to support the embedded integration of ML models into your applications. Unlike GenAI and cognitive services that run on a hyperscaler’s environment, the ML KIt enables your AI models to run inside the confines of your environment. The Mendix ML Kit aligns with the critical objectives of AI-minded enterprises, ensuring high performance, data privacy, and cost-effectiveness.

Learn more about AI-Augmented Applications capabilities in Mendix