On Amoeba and Notion

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Amoebae can alter their shape. They do this primarily by extending and retracting pseudopods. (Thank you, Wikipedia.) As it turns out, today’s low-code and no-code tools exhibit similar characteristics.

Case in point: A few days back, Notion announced that its generative AI tool was now available in alpha.1 Check out the video below:

Low-code/no-code tools don’t fall neatly into a single category.

As I describe in the new book, low-code/no-code tools don’t fall neatly into a single category à la Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files. Rather, they overlap and frequently evolve. Updates don’t merely extend the power of a feature or add an adjacent one. They introduce entirely new capabilities—ones that have historically required adopting a different app.

I struggled with creating a viable taxonomy—and apparently, Gartner and Forrester have experienced similar difficulties. 

Simon Says

Classification issues aside, here’s the good news: Notion, Airtable, Mendix, Appian, SmartSuite, and their ilk will do more next month than this month. And that expansion benefits all of their users. No, one app won’t rule them all, but we’ll be able to use fewer of them. 

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