Andrew Ofstad

Co-founder, @airtable

[Andrew Ofstad @aofstad]

@dvdsgl Very cool! Love the idea of the story living beyond the bounds of the page.

Where did you get the frame? I actually built something similar recently - you upload photos of your kids and they're "painted" in a different artistic style every day.

[Andrew Ofstad @aofstad]

Congrats to the Reducto team!

[Adit @aditabrm]

Today, @reductoai is helping hundreds of AI teams ingest tens of millions of pages every month, and we’re excited to announce that we’ve raised an $8.4M seed round led by @firstround to continue on our mission of making human data LLM-ready.

(1/7)

[Howie Liu @howietl]

Really excited to launch this today!!

This represents the second of two ways in which we're disrupting ourselves with AI. The first, which we launched in March, was about making Airtable the easiest way to deploy the leading LLMs into departmental data and workflows.

The second, today's launch, is about using AI to *build* apps.

AI app-building will radically tilt the "build custom app vs buy prebuilt solution" equation in favor of the former.

Traditional enterprise software development is expensive and slow, but its even greater problem is the disconnect that results between the software developers building an app and the business stakeholders who need the app.

The entire founding premise of Airtable and the no code category we pioneered is to enable the people closest to their own business context and requirements to build the apps they need, and to easily change them as the requirements evolve. Especially in industries and functions undergoing a high rate of transformation (eg media, tech, retail, finserv), this approach is critical for companies to stand up the operations they need to adapt and execute on this new era. For instance, retailers spinning up digital commerce operations and the resultant omnichannel approach marketing. Or media companies building up their streaming operations and overall accelerating their pace and volume of content production, as well as marketing operations.

The magic of applying AI to the app building problem is that modern LLMs already come pretrained with an understanding of these industry dynamics and the rough shape of the operations needed to execute in this era. And can be guided to combine that context with the more specific requirements of a business unit owner to instantly generate a useful, highly specific app.

Best of all, when the app is generated as a no code app, all of its data, logic, and interface structure are made easily understood and directly manipulable by the customer. Unlike with AI-generated software code, which is understandable/inspectable/editable only by developers.

That's why we're calling it Cobuilder. The best way to leverage LLMs to build applications for a business use case is to bring the AI generation and human user as close together as possible, with no code as the common language between them.

My cofounder @aofstad will remember my decade-ago ruminations about a future in which you could “talk to Airtable to have it build your app.” A decade and 50M+ Airtable apps later… this is by far the biggest accelerant to deliver on that mission.

To the entire community of team members, customers, and Airtable builders that have gotten us here, thank you. And I couldn't be more excited to join together on the next decade ahead!

Try it here! We even allow you to generate an app pre-signup : )
https://t.co/iTKSCgoW0q

[Raghav Sethi @raghavsethi]

Sure, LLMs are cool, but to actually extract business value from them, they need to live alongside your data and integrate deeply into your workflows.

I'm psyched to finally share @airtable AI publicly - a suite of features designed precisely for this!

https://t.co/cok7nnrHsl

[Andrew Ofstad @aofstad]

@tjack Thanks for having me Todd, really enjoyed the conversation!

[Caleb Meredith @calebmer]

So excited to share this product with the world!

I’m proud of what our team built—in less than a year

Built by some of the finest product engineers I’ve worked with. Always doing extra, always thinking about the user, always practicing & perfecting their craft

[Andrew Ofstad @aofstad]

@tonsing @laurynisford Good point... need some Airtable kit!

[Andrew Ofstad @aofstad]

@AlexCartaz @jkwade @talweezy ha! don't remember that specifically but all adds up with my general recollection of that internship 😆

[Howie Liu @howietl]

1/ Today, @airtable takes a giant leap forward towards its vision.
https://t.co/1ssv9830f3

[Andrew Ofstad @aofstad]

Three BIG updates today that we've been heads down on for some time. Proud of the team and excited to see what our customers will build!

[Airtable @airtable]

We want to help create more software builders, not just software users. With our new platform, you can create fully customized applications, build more interconnected teams, and benefit from a community of people who share what they create. Let’s dig in ⬇️ https://t.co/LhGOysAa0j

[Andrew Ofstad @aofstad]

@erinfrey @howietl @emmettnicholas @USDResponse @airtable @raylene @jessunscripted We'd love to help! https://t.co/revYcx4mn3

[Andrew Ofstad @aofstad]

@tonsing @airtable @edavidpeterson Nice!! Thanks for spreading the word!

[Caroline Savello @cmsavello]

This --> a big deal. Just a few years ago, we had to kick down doors for testing at top-tier institutions. Very proud to be launching this tonight. https://t.co/Xa3RZn8QVY

[Nicholas Macias @nicholasmacias]

Did @airtable pay more, or less, for this placement behind construction?

[Airtable @airtable]

Introducing: our new homepage! 🎊 https://t.co/XoYFjBoBW0

[AWS Startups @AWSstartups]

.@Airtable co-founder and CEO @howietl on embracing unintended customers, eschewing excess, and building a “neural net” for advice. https://t.co/4Xzp3qXbiw

[Katherine Duh 🌻 @katherineduh]

Maybe you’ve seen some “Best of 2017” lists... but have you seen a list of the best lists of 2017? 🤔 https://t.co/1NmGJs28ec

[Andrew Ofstad @aofstad]

@mathowie @briansholis @ftrain @richziade @airtable You can check out some case studies here: https://t.co/rNaPVo7leC. This one may be relevant: https://t.co/2Meet5u3WM. You can also explore https://t.co/9795iTJUKY for user-published bases. Overview video: https://t.co/StSiVFkCkR. Lastly, hit me up if you want a walkthrough!

[Andrew Ofstad @aofstad]

@teague Thanks! Feel free to send them over - (my firstname)@airtable.com

[Designer Hangout @DesignerHangout]

Just a *Giant 300+ list of UX books*

https://t.co/CBmFzC6tof

Did we miss a book? Let us know :)

Thank you @airtable 🙌