Oracle Unveils AI Assistant for Apex Low-Code Development App

Oracle has introduced a new AI-powered assistant to speed up app development by enabling developers to use natural language commands.

The company added the AI assistant as part of updates to its Apex low-code development platform to simplify the creation of data-driven enterprise applications.

Users can converse with the chatbot using text prompts, asking it to generate SQL statements or debug programs for existing or new applications.

Instead of remembering table names or coding syntax, developers can issue plain language prompts like: "List all customers who made a purchase over $500 in the last 30 days and live in California,” and the chatbot will generate the desired information.

“Having an AI assistant to determine column names contextually, [code] joins and generate complex syntax is a real game changer," said Mike Hichwa, Oracle’s senior vice president for software development. "Best of all, I can use plain natural language… and the Apex AI Assistant will automate that for me."

Oracle said the new feature aims to free developers from performing routine coding tasks.

Apex comes at no extra cost to Oracle database service customers. More than 21 million applications have already been built using the platform, the company claimed.

The Assistant integration comes as part of the 24.1 version of the Apex platform.

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In addition to the new assistant, the 24.1 update lets developers select the large language model of their choice to power their applications' conversational interfaces.

Oracle customers using the Apex platform include Trailcon, which manages trailer fleets in North America and Natcorp, which HR management solutions in Brazil.

"We can process over 3,000 invoices every month with an 87% accuracy rate. Oracle Apex and Oracle Cloud infrastructure enable 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, Trailcon’s vice president for IT delivery.

"Natcorp provides HR management solutions to more than 600,000 users in Brazil. The combination of Apex and AI is a huge time-saver for our customers,” said Igor Sala Natcorp’s technology and innovation head. “They can simply ask questions in the Apex app and get answers in seconds.”