Using AI to Build Your First App

Artificial intelligence is altering the way people interact with technology and what they can do with it—and using it to accomplish everyday tasks in record time, including things like:

• Summarizing long texts
• Responding to emails and text messages
• Get answers to financial questions
• Developing trip itineraries
• Drafting or enhancing emails and other content

Here’s the thing: While AI can certainly be used to cross these day-to-day items off your to-do list, you can also use this technology to bring development projects to life—like that idea you have for an app that you just know would revolutionize people’s lives and shake up your industry or a project you’re taking on for a new client.

Many developers are already using artificial intelligence to build mobile apps more efficiently. Research suggests that using AI to write code can increase developer productivity by 26%.

AI generation tools are shifting how large corporations and individuals build business apps for things like marketing, finance, HR, sales, customer service, and more. Mobile app developers are leveraging these solutions to bring apps to fruition at record speed. Here’s what you need to know about using AI to make that concept for an app you’ve been sitting on a reality. 

Why AI Is Transforming App Development

Artificial intelligence is not a brand new tool, but the popularity of learning language models (LLMs) like Chat GPT has certainly brought about a new awareness about how this technology can be used. Most notably, AI is changing the entlre mobile app development process. 

Why is this? It has a lot to do with how versatile AI can be; it can automate repetitive tasks, draft code, identify solutions to improve the overall user experience, and support incredibly sophisticated functionalities that may give even experienced developers pause—all in record time. 

Additionally, with machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and other deep learning technologies, apps can achieve complexities like addressing user questions and resolving customer issues via chatbots and virtual assistants. With so many uses, it’s no wonder that 76% of developers reported that they either already use AI coding tools, or plan to use them in the near future, up from 70% in 2023. 

There are plenty of benefits to using AI to build mobile applications. For starters, AI can process large volumes of data with incredible efficiency and accuracy, analyzing this data for use. For developers, this means that they can gain a deeper understanding of things like user behaviors and user preferences, both of which can help tailor an app’s functions and content to better meet their needs. 

AI also makes the app development process far more cost-efficient—and more accessible to individuals and smaller organizations that don’t have the same pool of resources as larger entities. Thanks to the power of task automation, AI drastically lowers the time and resources needed to build an app, accomplishing a few things at the same time:

• Developers are free to focus on their app’s creative elements and higher-level concepts 
• Apps are built much faster than they were before the introduction of AI
• Apps created with the support of AI are often higher quality and better performing

How AI Tools Assist Beginners in Coding

AI can be a powerful tool in building a mobile app—especially when you are just diving into the world of development. It can help with things like:

• Increasing productivity: Especially as you are starting, AI can help you take a mobile app life faster than ever, reduce your time to market when you add new and/or intricate features to your app, and even take on complicated challenges early in your career

• Boost code volume and improve iteration speed: One study showed that when 4,800 developers were granted access to AI code-generation tools, the number of weekly code commits rose by 13.5% and the instances of cope compilation grew by 38.4%. What does this prove? AI assistants can help you write code and produce iterations, which can also result in faster prototyping, increased testing frequency, and a very agile development process.

This same study found that new developers in particular can benefit from using AI assistants to write code. New developers who described themselves as “short-tenure” developers increased their output by anywhere from 27 to 39%, while junior-level developers displayed a productivity boost of anywhere from 21 to 40%.

Using artificial intelligence to build your first app can also be a great way to support your development learning process in the field, so to speak. By leveraging AI, which pulls from untold volumes of data, you can discover firsthand how mobile apps are put together “in the field,” so to speak.

Key Features of AI-Powered Code Editors

Mobile app development looks quite different in the era of AI—especially when it comes to code editors. No longer do code editors just offer things like syntax highlighting or autocompletion. Today, developers at every experience level are using code editors like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Anthropic Sonnet 3.5, OpenAI o1, and OpenAI Pro Mode to create successful mobile applications—and you can too! With AI-driven code editors that run on large language models, you can do things like:

• Generate relevant code suggestions
• Automate simple coding tasks
• Make the entire app code writing process more efficient
• Free you up to take on more complicated tasks

One of the most important features of code editors that run on generative AI is large language models (LLMs). LLMs allow you to use code editors to analyze and write code sequences so you can automate repetitive tasks and increase productivity.

What’s more, these generative AI-fueled code editors partner code writing automation with developing creative solutions. Older, more rule-based solutions could only fall back on preexisting patterns, while generative AI can make inferences, opening the door to more creative problem solving. With code editors like GitHub Copilot, you can do things like:

• Write boilerplate code quickly and accurately
• Build complicated algorithms
• Retool existing code
• Identify coding errors in real time, discover suggestions to fix these errors, and get support to debug your app’s code
• Improve and optimize your mobile app code for security and performance
• Use AI to understand new code or unfamiliar frameworks
• Get answers to coding questions and suggestions for APIs

Step-by-Step Guide: Building Your First App with AI Assistance

Generative AI-based tools like ChatGPT may be powerful, but at this point, they can’t develop a full-fledged, functional mobile application on their own just yet. And that makes sense—developing an app is a complicated endeavor that calls for a whole range of resources. However, AI tools like ChatGPT and generative code editors can play an integral role in creating an app more efficiently. 

Here’s a look at how you can bring your mobile application to life with AI assistance:

1. Make a Plan

In the same way, you need a detailed blueprint to build a house, you need a plan regarding what kind of application you’re developing and what it can do for its users. After all, with literally millions of apps available today, you need captivating and competitive ideas to capture peoples’ attention. 

One good starting place is to use ChatGPT and generative AI code editors to flesh out a plan for what you want to include in your app. You can then provide prompts  to take you through the planning process: 

• What are users looking for in an application in your industry?
• What features and functionalities should an application include?
• Draft a blueprint for an app with your intended features, functionalities, and/or purpose.
• Draft a user interface for your application.

These answers can help guide you through the planning phase, providing you with additional information about the requirements you’ll want to include as you build your application. As you plan, remember that AI is just a tool—you can continue to ask questions to get more specific information for creating your application, how to start the development and deployment processes, and how to get additional ideas for your mobile app. 

2. Develop Your App Code

Next, you can start to use AI tools to write the actual code for your app. Each app might have hundreds of thousands of lines of code distributed across thousands of files. While AI can’t build a functioning app in one fell swoop, you can use it to structure your app’s code piece by piece. 

You may ask AI tools to create code for things like:

• Color scheme and font styles for your particular application concept
• How to list out different resources or features (like a list of restaurants for a food delivery app, for example)
• Different elements of your application’s interface (including the app icon)
• How to write out code for particular functions 
• How to set up data elements based on your specific requirements

Throughout the coding process, artificial intelligence can be a great resource—but it’s important to keep in mind that not all code written by these AI-generative tools will work on the first try. You may have to alter or debug the code to get it running. 

Think of AI here like keystroke shortcuts; it can help you choose and write out the code for things like color palettes and fonts based on the genre of your app—helping you accomplish these tasks quickly. You might even opt to weave AI into your app—like including ChatGPT as a feature, perhaps as a language translator or chatbot.

3. Finalize Your App Development

Once you’ve written out your code, you’ll want to put it through rigorous testing to ensure everything works as expected, including:

• Functional testing
• Performance testing
• UI/UX testing
• Compatibility testing for different devices

You can automate this process with different AI tools like ML and NLP to pinpoint any potential issues, analyze your app’s data, and gain all kinds of insights on how to optimize your app for factors like performance, memory usage, and battery consumption. AI can help you increase testing efficiency, prioritize test cases based on potential use patterns, find and diagnose bugs faster, and cover more ground when it comes to testing. You can do things like:

• Use AI algorithms and data synthesis to build representative datasets for your testing.
• White label data to make it anonymous for testing to maintain privacy and regulatory compliance.
• Use ML models to predict possible defects.
• Set up anomaly detection algorithms and find potential defects or abnormalities.
• Use AI algorithms to run performance testing and spot performance bottlenecks.
• Set up ML models to discover how your system will behave under various loads.
• Use AI optimization to improve app performance.
• Set up AI algorithms for provisioning and configuration of testing environments.
• Use ML models within your testing environment to discover your resource requirements and how to allocate them.
• Analyze test results using AI to spot patterns.
• Use NLP to analyze test results and synthesize this information into reports.

Other things to keep in mind as you finalize app development? Now is the time to investigate any compliance guidelines you’ll need to consider for each app platform (like Google Play and the Apple App Store) regarding things like content, design, and functionality.

4. Deploy Your Mobile App

Once you move through the development app and you’re ready to deploy, you’re ready to publish your app on different platforms like the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. AI can help you here too. You might ask questions like: “What steps do I need to take to deploy my mobile app?”

For example, if you want to deploy your app in the Google Play App Store, you might get a ChatGPT-generated response instructing you to:

1. Create a developer account within the Google Play Store
2. Create your app in the store by providing some basic information 
3. Upload the APK and App Bundle
4. Publish your app within the store and give the Google teams time to review this app

The app platform will ask for things like:

• A high-resolution app icon
• Screenshots displaying your app in action
• A clear, SEO-optimized description of what your app is all about (including keywords)
• Your privacy policy and terms of service
• You may also want to provide preview videos to help increase engagement

Real-Life Examples of Apps Created Using AI Tools

With generative AI tools so readily available, there aren’t many apps today that don’t have some element built using artificial intelligence. Here are a few noteworthy examples of apps leveraging generative AI as part of their mobile apps:

• CareerVillage is expanding an app called Coach, meant to support underrepresented young people get ready for the job market. Coach offers 35 career development activities, and they already have plans to expand their offerings to include 100+ activities to get young people ready for employment. 

• • IHG Hotels & Resorts is building a chatbot powered by generative AI that helps their guests plan vacations within their One Rewards app.

• Dunelm is optimizing the customer shopping experience with generative AI-driven product discovery to help consumers find the goods they are looking for faster and with less friction.

Tips for Choosing the Right AI Coding Platform

Choosing the right AI-powered coding assistant or coding platform can make a huge difference in your experience of building an app. Each platform will have its own set of attributes, so it’s important to know what features you’re looking for in a coding platform. 

You may want to consider things like:

• Whether your coding platform offers Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) like Visual Studio Code. If you use these kinds of environments, you may want to consider tools like GitHub Copilot.
• If you need support for a range of programming languages and/or frameworks. Some coding tools may function better with web development languages like JavaScript or HTML, while others use programming languages like C and Rust. 
• If you want to use open source tools which may require a little more setup and ongoing maintenance, or if you want to enter the world of proprietary tools like Codex or OpenAI, which offer advanced features at a cost to you. 
• What security features or privacy offerings you need, like data encryption or privacy controls to keep your code secure and protect your mobile app’s users.
• If you will need extra support for certain tasks, like generating testing algorithms, natural language-to-code translation, or other specific features.

Kable Academy: Your Ticket to Understanding AI, Developing, App Building, and More

At Kable Academy, we’re eager to help you embark on a journey toward the rest of your life with a range of courses designed to meet you at your level of experience. Through our award-winning technical bootcamps, we’ll provide you with a deeper understanding of the critical tools you need to excel at developing, including how to draft the powerful code you need to build a successful mobile app.

Whether it’s drafting source code, conquering AI-powered code editors, or building a new mobile app from the ground up, Kable Academy will equip you with the knowledge you need to make a mark on the world of mobile application development—and your own career. 

Ready to learn more? Discover the details on our range of courses today!