Creatio Bakes AI Into No-Code Platform ‘Kernel’
Creatio, a provider of an AI-native platform to automate customer relationship management (CRM) and workflows with no code, has launched its 8.3 “Twin” release, positioning AI as a collaborative partner rather than a replacement for human workers.
This release introduces new pre-built, role-based AI agents, a unified conversational interface and AI-powered no-code development tools — including scalable AI agent creation and deployment — all natively embedded into the core of the platform, said Burley Kawasaki, global vice president of product marketing and strategy at Creatio.
Moreover, the “Twin” reference in the release reflects Creatio’s vision of AI as a collaborative force within the enterprise. Instead of replacing human talent, Creatio.ai is built to work alongside users.
This release represents Creatio’s vision of AI-native applications where natural language interaction, agent collaboration and no-code development converge to create more adaptable and user-friendly business software, Kawasaki said.
Major Release Including Agents
“This is perhaps the most significant release we’ve had over the last few years, because I think it opens up so many new opportunities and new potential,” Kawasaki said. “This is not traditional no-code for building classic SaaS [Software as a Service] applications. But now I can build agents. I can build very new and immersive types of interactions between humans and agents.”
According to Kawasaki, Creatio is betting on a fundamental shift away from traditional SaaS applications, which he says are costly to customize and cumbersome to use. Instead, Creatio envisions a future where applications are built using no-code tools enhanced by AI, creating more tailored user experiences.
“We’re not trying to say agents are going to replace your employees,” Kawasaki told The New Stack. “We see instead this model where really the agents and the users, humans, are working much more collaboratively.”
In essence, the primary focus of Creatio 8.3 is to facilitate AI-native application development and human-agent collaboration.
Indeed, “Our approach is human-centric,” Katherine Kostereva, CEO of Creatio, said in a statement. “With this release, we continue to expand our AI-native platform, placing unified, actionable, and composable AI automation at the very core of Creatio. The 8.3 release takes our AI automation to a new level, empowering organizations to transform processes and deliver results like never before.”
No-Code Upgrade Plus AI
The new release upgrades the no-code development experience within Studio Creatio. Studio Creatio is the core of the Creatio product suite. It is a no-code platform to automate workflows and build applications.
Thus, Creatio 8.3 enables nontechnical business users to build dashboards, pages and applications using natural language commands. The platform also enables users to create and customize their own AI agents.
New features include AI-generated visualizations, smart layouts and filter suggestions for dashboard development, while DevOps and IT teams benefit from enhanced governance and monitoring capabilities, including enterprise-grade Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and OAuth-based security, the company said.
In addition, the platform uses retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to deliver company-specific responses across web and mobile applications, as well as within productivity tools like Microsoft Outlook and Teams, Kawasaki said.
Not Tacking AI On
“It’s not just tacking on AI as a feature and saying, ‘Okay, we’re AI now,’” Kawasaki told The New Stack. “That’s not AI-native in the same way that back when we were talking about the cloud, it wasn’t enough to simply put a VM [virtual machine] into the cloud. You had to really re-architect and sort of redefine your applications to be cloud native. The same is true with AI.”
Instead, Creatio adds natural language into the core runtime of the creation platform. “Think of it as the kernel of the OS, meaning any application, even the ones you’ve already built, can now suddenly be conversed with,” Kawasaki said.
Creatio’s new agents help organizations to significantly increase productivity and enhance user experience, he noted.
“Agents are great at those sorts of things,” Kawasaki said. “And so, the agents can take off a lot of the manual tasks, the repetitive tasks. That frees the human up to focus more on relationship building or on the sales strategy or on creative activities that they oftentimes don’t [do] because of all the tedious work.”
Pre-Built Agents for Business Functions
Creatio 8.3 introduces specialized AI agents that integrate into existing workflows:
- Sales Agents include the Account Research Agent, Quote Agent and Meeting Prep Agent, which prepare briefings, generate proposals and surface key account insights.
- Marketing Agents, such as the Marketing Content Agent and Email Generation Agent, draft targeted messaging and personalize outreach based on campaign objectives.
- Service Agents, including the Customer Support Agent and Knowledge Base Agent, help resolve cases faster with contextual responses and suggested knowledge articles.
- No-Code Agents, like the Dashboards Agent, enable users to build and modify reports using natural language, eliminating technical barriers to analytics.
Competitive Landscape
Creatio competes directly with Salesforce and Microsoft in CRM markets, appearing in Gartner Magic Quadrants and Forrester Wave reports, Kawasaki said. However, their platform-first approach — where applications are built using Creatio’s own no-code tools rather than being monolithic applications with added extensibility — enables faster deployment and greater customization, he added.
Moreover, the update introduces comprehensive AI capabilities directly into the platform’s core without additional licensing fees or integration complexity, Kawasaki said.
