Thanks for posting, @benjaminfortunato! There are already some great conversations happening across the forum - here, for example - and I recommend checking them out!
To answer your primary question, though, we've really embraced the fact that AI-assisted development has changed the game when it comes to speed. The new app builder lets you use your favorite LLM to build Retool apps at the speed of AI, but I don't think that is still our primary differentiator. Instead, Retool accelerates the process of deploying and maintaining the apps that you've built and gives you confidence that they're running in a secure, governed environment. At a high level, I'd say that our time-saving impact has thus moved a bit downstream.
I'll share some technical details, as well:
- Retool apps are now written as React apps that hook into an org's authentication scheme and resource definitions. And they actually utilize the
shadcn/uicomponent library! - The Retool MCP includes a wide variety of tools that allow you to do most things via your favorite LLM, including resource CRUD and app building.
- In terms of data flow, there are two primary primitives: resource definitions (including authentication scheme) and serverless functions. The latter isn't yet reusable across apps, but will be coming soon.
I'm happy to answer any additional specific questions, but think this is a good place to start!