Software development has changed significantly over the past few years. Whereas customers used to ask us, “Can you build an application for us using Mendix?”, we're increasingly hearing a much broader question: “How can we make our processes smarter and more efficient?”
And that's where things get interesting.
Looking at how our services have evolved, I see that Mendix still provides an important foundation. But the ambition has grown considerably.
We're increasingly moving towards a combination of:
Personally, I find that last one particularly interesting. A Squad isn't simply a group of developers working together at a customer's site. The idea is to bring different areas of expertise together, share knowledge, take collective responsibility and ultimately deliver more value than you would by simply placing a single consultant somewhere.
This also changes the role of the consultant.
The question is becoming less and less: "Do you know Mendix?" and increasingly: "Do you understand what an organisation needs and can you use the right technology to solve that problem?" This means that being technically strong is no longer enough.
You need to be able to switch between business, processes, architecture, technology, AI and, last but certainly not least, results. And that's only going to become more important in the years ahead.
AI is going to have a major impact on software development, but I don't believe it will make low-code obsolete. Quite the opposite: I expect the combination of low-code, integration and AI to help us build much faster and smarter.
Why? Because AI can increasingly take over much of the hands-on work. Think of analysing requirements, generating code and logic, processing data and supporting integrations. Low-code then allows us to quickly turn these capabilities into applications and business processes, while integrations give AI access to the right data and systems.
This means we spend less time on repetitive development tasks and have more time for architecture, complex challenges and creating real business value. So we're not just building faster; we're also able to focus our time much more effectively on designing and delivering better solutions.
A great example of this is Mendix, which is increasingly focusing on AI and agents within its platform. Whereas applications previously responded mainly to user actions, agents will soon be able to perform more and more tasks autonomously, within clearly defined boundaries.
Think of an agent that analyses an incoming customer request, retrieves relevant information from different systems, checks business rules and then independently triggers a process or workflow. The developer remains responsible for defining the architecture, integrations, business rules and boundaries within which the agent can operate.
This also changes the role of the developer. We spend less time building every individual step ourselves and more time designing the environment in which AI can operate safely, at scale and under control.
And that's exactly where I see a huge opportunity for low-code.
It's not AI or low-code, but AI + low-code + data integration.
This combination can help us not only build software faster, but, more importantly, create smarter software that can take on more of the work for us.
The real challenge, then, won't be: How quickly can we develop software? but rather: How much smarter can we make our business processes?
And ultimately, that's also the direction Squad Apps is heading in:
Mendix as the foundation.
Digital transformation as the goal.
Squads as the way we work.
AI as the intelligence layer.
Low-code as security & governance by design.
Either way, it's an exciting time to be part of this movement!
