Introducing new ways to harness the power of AI, build apps, and connect data

[Stephanie_Sosa]

👋Hi all! I’m Stephanie, product marketer at Airtable and I'm so excited to introduce some powerful new features to help teams build AI-powered apps on top of shared data—all within a single, scalable platform.

Today, we’re bringing AI to Airtable, making Airtable the easiest and fastest way to deploy AI-powered applications across the enterprise. We're also releasing new features to empower teams to get up and running and build powerful apps quickly with a suite of pre-built applications for marketing and product teams. 

• Apps by Airtable: Get set up and running faster than ever with out-of-the-box apps built for critical use cases. Available for Enterprise.
• Verified data: Easily protect and manage your org’s most important data from one place, while making it accessible to those who need it most. Available for Enterprise.
• Two-way sync: Automatically sync data and edits back and forth between workflows so your teams can easily collaborate on the most up-to-date information. Available for Enterprise.

We’re rolling these updates out over the next week; if you don’t see them reflected in your workspace, hold tight! 

But something I’m super excited to announce is a new left navigation in Interface Designer. Now, we’re making it easier for you to quickly find and engage with the most important parts of their workflows. In addition to the updates we released back in March, Interface Designer makes it that much easier to build on Airtable. (And spoiler alert: we’re not done. Stay tuned for even more exciting updates to the app building experience)

Left Navigation: New left navigation panel for easy navigation between interfaces & pages.

But that’s not all, you’ll also see that we cleaned up the share view menu so that your teams can discover and share important views and data across the org.

Redesigned Share View Menu: Simplified sharing and syncing with a redesigned share view dialog.

These features will be a game changer for teams of all sizes—helping them build the apps they need on a scalable, secure platform. Learn more about these updates in our blog post!

We can’t wait to hear what you think, and see what you build, with these updates!

[BillH]

We are over one week into this (I realize it was rolled out at different times to different accounts), and all we've seen from Airtable is a vague "we're working on it".  It certainly does not reflect well on their code management, but I suppose that is to be expected since they seem to recreate the wheel constantly rather than build on the wheel they have and adapt that as necessary.  (Why else would we have three different forms available from them, so I have to go back to the standard view forms to use prefill but I can't make those forms look anywhere as professional as the forms in the interface.)

I've lost a week on a key project (which I believe would have let to an new Pro client for Airtable and would very quickly grow to enterprise level.)  Even worse, the person trying fast track approval is concerned now with starting and having changes made by Airtable without adequate notice and the ability to opt out on changes.  So, no fast track, and on the normal track the "suggestions" are starting to pile up.

I'm not expecting any type of response, but I'm frustrated and can't understand why a company would put all that effort into building a U/I addition to their product and then intentionally sabotage it.

[Bill_French]

Just a little more opinion (based on facts).

In late 2020 there were rumors of an "interface" like view feature that would revolutionize how we build Airtable apps. It was [rumored] to be based on open web standards. [YAY!] And it was likely to support open access to HTML and CSS along with the already successful script extensions.

Fast-forward to the actual Interfaces launch, a closed and proprietary architecture that ostensibly locked everyone out from customizations. [BOO!]

This, and perhaps hundreds of community messages and perhaps thousands of support conversations, would never have occurred had Airtable stayed the original course and designed its Interfaces feature using open web standards.

As you ponder what to do in the face of this isolated, but deeply impactful UI/UX train wreck, it's apparent there are many lessons for Airtable to learn from this, including -- but not limited to -- baking into the release opt-out options for all things related to UI/UX deployments. Shame on Airtable for not installing this common approach to sustain backward compatibility.

But there are also lessons to be learned for the community.

Complacency towards lock-in. Y'all loved Interfaces until you didn't. You encouraged Airtable to sustain a closed and proprietary approach with implicit acceptance. You encouraged the creation of new features to improve your apps in the context of this closed and limiting design choice. The community data shows that you did not ask for greater agility or the ability to take command of your future in the [likely] event Airtable decided to support interests that were not perfectly aligned with your own.

I [personally] assessed the Interfaces launch with several tests of version 1, and I advised anyone (who would listen) to be very cautious. Given the closed nature of this aspect of the product, it was a logical and rational reaction. At the time, customers were pretty drunk on Interfaces, just as they were slightly inebriated concerning AI. Most of my suggestions -- to find a better way to build interfaces -- were rejected. There's a small slice of customers who are not impacted by this release at all - they avoided lock-in.

Airtable vastly owns the UX segment for no/low-code platforms. It is highly respected by people in tech and customers alike. But it is not impervious to demise. Think carefully about your next step - I believe we're at the knee of another curve that will fracture the monolithic architectures of no-code solutions.

[cporter]

@Stephanie_Sosa  Please remove or let us hide the left navigation panel- it is causing so much trouble for all of my teams. 

[Tobias_LGKR]

@Bill_French Thank you for your thoughts and insight. I agree with much of what you say, especially the universal law, that when you are at the top, there's no guarantee that the curve won't go down. And that curve is often the result of only a couple of decisions. Sometimes even just one.

I am not a developer. I know little about coding and the whole technical background. I run a small company and I came to Airtable last year because of the dawn of AT interfaces. I know nothing about how they are built and what that means. From my very personal perspective I could care less about all that if there were a sense that a (any) product is developed in the best interest of the sum of the needs of its customers. And by that I mean especially the base, not only the big marketed brands dumping large amounts of money. While this interface issue has only a mild impact for us at the moment (because we all use huge displays) the fact that noone from higher management is addressing this head on makes me cautios about the future. Just be forthcoming and tell us: "We have a vision and we will not dillute that with the input of our small sized customers." I would be dissappointed but very greatful for such honesty. I guess the greatest problem ist the unknown. And the only way to interpret what that means at the moment is "We just don't care". No matter how many product managers you send into the ring to make marketing-lingo infused promises. This is the time that someone else steps up to the plate to address the greater issue that this situation appears to stand for.

[Karlstens]

May we please have an update? The recently added sidebar is causing great concern and frustration with my users, and the anxiety of not being able to address this personally/directly isn’t helping. 

[Tristan-ARG]

Hi!! I just found out that the collapsable sidebar is now available!. we were listened hehe!.  

[egordin]

Omg so much better. So so much better. I'd still prefer to have it fully hide like the views pane in grid view, but goodness gracious so much better. Thank you.

[Shannon_Anahata]

Hi folks! Shannon on the product team, back again with an update. 

Thank you all for the continued input throughout this thread. 

I’m excited to share that we have released an update to the new navigation. It is now possible to collapse the left navigation, and continue to use it as needed. Hover over any interface icon to see and select from its list of pages. 

There are a few more changes to help improve the building experience with preview and moving between data, automations, and interfaces coming soon.

[Tobias_LGKR]

@Shannon_Anahata Thank you

[BillH]

@Shannon_Anahata - Thank you, this is a big help.