Assist Beta Conclusion

đź“Ł Retool Announcements đź’Ą Product Updates
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Over the past year, we’ve learned a tremendous amount from customers using Assist to build apps by prompting AI. We used this feedback to develop and launch the next generation of the Retool app builder, which provides a more capable and flexible experience for AI-powered development.

As part of our commitment to deliver the best possible experience for our customers, starting September 30, Assist will no longer be available in the classic app builder.

Your existing classic apps aren’t going away. They’ll continue to be supported and editable in the classic drag-and-drop builder.

Why we’re making this change

Our goal is to provide a single AI-powered app-building experience that can evolve quickly and support a broader range of apps. Compared to Assist, the new app builder offers significantly expanded capabilities, including:

  • Faster, more capable app building through the UI

  • The ability to build and deploy apps using leading AI coding agents such as Claude Code using the MCP

  • Apps that are visually richer and 2-4x faster

  • Continued investment in new capabilities, including planned support for native testing and custom design system integration

Getting started with the new app builder

Cloud customers

The new app builder is already enabled for most Cloud customers. If you don’t see it yet, a workspace admin can enable it in Settings → AI. Learn more about configuring your org, including instructions for setting a default AI model, or limiting usage to a specific group of customers.

Self-hosted customers

The new app builder is available for self-hosted deployments running 4.0+ or later. The Q3 stable release (v4.34) will be available beginning next week. Learn more about upgrading.

Timeline and support

If you’re an active Assist user and have questions about upgrading or enabling the new app builder, please contact Retool Support or reach out to your Retool account team. We’re committed to helping make your transition as smooth as possible before Assist reaches end of life on September 30, 2026.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Assist beta. Your feedback has been instrumental in shaping the next generation of AI-powered app building in Retool, and we’re excited for what comes next.

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Assist added one component...and moved three others I explicitly told it not to touch
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Pretty disappointed with this. I found the AI assist easy to work with and the workflow was so easy. Now I have to look into another workflow and don't even know where to start. Can you guys provide some kind of video or something showing the old assist way vs the new way, whatever that is? I'm all for using our Claude Code subscription but I don't see how that will be easier than going to the portal and chatting with assist and seeing the changes live right away. Bummer.

Mike

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Thanks for sharing this, @mikeS . I understand where you’re coming from.

One thing I want to clarify is that you can still build apps by chatting with AI and see changes happen live in the UI, just in a much more capable environment.
Claude Code + MCP is an additional option for building in the new app builder.

The best way to get started with the new app builder is to simply go to Create > App. I think you’ll find this version of AI powered app building to be much faster and more capable than the Assist experience.

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I did find this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAmdliZtLpc

Is this really all we need to do?

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I'd rather use the CLI if works as easy as the video I just shared.

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Yes! The CLI is an additional option to build with the new app builder that just went into private beta. If you’d like to sign up for early access, please fill out this form and I can talk to the team about getting you into the beta program.

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Ok, I went into the new app builder and told it to build me an Order Management app. Couple questions already.

  1. How do I tell it to use a table in our SQL Server db like I could before.
  2. How do I protect the app and do a PR to our repo and then create a branch?

Also, I signed up for the CLI beta a couple weeks ago by filling out that form and according to my manager he got excepted but I didn't hear anything so I think we are in.

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  1. Simply @-tag a resource to instruct the agent to build with R2
  2. These apps are able to be source control protected in the same manner that Classic Apps are able to – see a step through guide here. Source Control is currently available to Enterprise plans only
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Ok, thanks. Got it now. Forgot about the @-tag thing. Was used to just clicking on the icon in the old Assist.

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One other question. Should we be converting all of apps we've developed in classic over to the new builder? We haven't deployed anything yet so now may be the time. I'm just concerned that by the time we start really testing and deploying our apps classic Assist will be gone and then what do we do?

thanks,
Mike

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You’ll be able to continue building and maintaining classic apps with our drag-and-drop editor after Assist is removed.

That said, I’d encourage you to try out the new experience, it's a big improvement! From there you can decide on your preferred app serving method (classic vs new, react-based).
I think you’ll find the new building pattern more flexible, faster and more easily amenable to adding new features

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I am very upset with this decision to conclude Assist in the Classic builder. The new App Builder is nowhere close to being ready for production use. Assist provided a bridge between the drag-and-drop utility of Classic apps that users have invested time in building – and the new App Builder. Now, users are forced into an all-or-nothing choice between building only with AI just like every other company, or using the drag-and-drop builder without AI support. I am completely confused by the business decision, and no longer understand what market Retool is chasing anymore. The result will be that we are forced to move completely away from Retool on an accelerated timetable. I understand that products must change, but this decision is a net negative for me.

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Hi @one_union, thanks for sharing your perspective. I understand why this feels like a step backward if Assist was an important part of your app building workflow.

I do want to reassure you that this isn’t a signal that we’re moving away from Classic Apps. They’ll continue to be supported and editable in the classic builder.

We’re consolidating our AI investment into a single app building experience so we can deliver more a capable AI builder, richer apps, and new capabilities faster. Supporting Assist meant splitting our engineering investment across multiple AI experiences, and we believe focusing on a single platform will let us move much faster and enable more builders.

The updated App Builder is indeed new, but we do have customers using it to build business critical applications, and we’re continuing to invest in it and improve it rapidly. As for how we fit into the market, we see the governance platform, deployment model (self hosted & cloud), model agnosticism and resource connectors as the competitive differentiators.

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Unfortunately, the writing is on the wall for the Classic Retool experience. You say they will continue to be “supported and editable” – but what you’re really implying by omission is that the Classic Apps will become legacy, and in a short time will not continue to be upgraded as users are pushed to the App Builder.

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The problem is our classic apps were built mostly with Assist since we are new to the platform. We have learned a lot of tricks along the way but aren't nearly as quick as Assist. When we need to add features to an app in the future we will have to do it completely on our own without Assist. That's why I asked if we should be converting classic apps so we can take advantage of Assist in the new builder when the day arrives that we need to add features.

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I would certainly encourage you to try converting one of your production apps! There's no immediate pressure to do so, but the new AI builder should be a significant improvement. And the conversion process won't touch your existing classic app, so there won't be any downtime in the interim.

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I completely understand Retool is moving in the direction of the new AI builder, and it looks great and I will eventually have to migrate my app. But you also said you would continue to support classic apps and turning off this feature is a major step backwards. Why selectively take away features like this when you don’t have to?

I suspect it’s one of two possibilities. Either it’s a step toward slowly making the classic app experience worse and worse as a way to increase adoption of the new builder. Or more likely, it’s just that the token cost of the Assist feature to Retool is too high to justify keeping it on, especially given your new product direction.

If it’s the second one, I would happily pay an additional fee to keep Assist on. Or you could impose reasonable limits to Assist instead of turning it off completely. I use Assist strictly in Ask mode a couple times per day to help me figure out bugs and make sure I thought of everything when implementing new features. It is a lifesaver that saves me hours and hours of work and I would happily pay an additional fee to keep it on. Thanks for your consideration.

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@Darren - Tried converting one of our apps and I must say - it is not usable. Very underwhelmed at the result. Here are some screenshots

Classic

image
image983Ă—725 32.9 KB

Converted

image
image1168Ă—516 16.5 KB

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Nailed it!!

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This looks like just a color palette issue - you can easily prompt the AI builder to fix the colors/contrast and solve this in a few minutes.

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