Oracle Application Express (APEX) - Generative AI Capabilities

Oracle Application Express (APEX) continues to revolutionize the way developers create web applications with its new Generative AI assistant. This cutting-edge feature integrates artificial intelligence into APEX’s low-code environment, allowing developers to accelerate the development process like never before. With the APEX Generative AI assistant, users can now generate SQL queries, PL/SQL and JavaScript code, and even create applications simply by describing their requirements in plain language. This means less time spent writing code and more time focused on refining application logic and design.

By bridging the gap between natural language and complex code generation, the AI assistant significantly reduces the learning curve for new developers while enhancing the efficiency of experienced ones. As Oracle APEX continues to evolve, the inclusion of AI-powered features sets a new standard for rapid application development, providing a powerful toolset that enhances productivity and creativity across all skill levels.

This introduction of generative AI in APEX showcases Oracle’s commitment to integrating advanced technologies that make development more accessible, efficient, and intuitive. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just beginning your journey with APEX, the Generative AI assistant opens up new possibilities for creating robust, data-rich applications faster than ever before.

Let us take a look at how to setup the Generative AI feature and what are some of the uses cases!

Note: click the images below to expand them for ease of use and readability! 

Setup

In order to take advantage of these features, we need to allow APEX to interact with an LLM via the API layer, and to do that we want to navigate to the "Workspace Utilities" area then select the "Generative AI" option.

Once we are there, you can create a trust between your APEX instance and an LLM, in the screenshot below we see the trust setup with Open AI, using an API key that I have access to, and I also show the options available to you besides Open AI, which are Cohere and Oracle's OCI Generative AI Service (which I recommend specially if you already use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, to take advantage of all the security you already have in place in your Virtual Cloud Network!).

APEX Assistant - SQL Workshop

Now for the exciting part! Within the SQL Workshop, you will see an option to click on the "APEX Assistant" which will open a panel on the right side, allowing you to access the query builder feature!

In the above we see the assistant joining two tables for us, in this example! We simply asked whether two tables in the current schema could be joined, and it provided the SQL statement to do just that! This can be very useful when seeking assistance in writing complex SQL for a data lineage you may not be very familiar with, and it is also something you cannot easily accomplish in another tool, like Chat GPT, because the APEX Assistant has access to the metadata in your database directly, making things easier!

Besides the query builder feature, we have the general assistance mode, where we can ask it to develop code for us, modify and optimize code, etc. In this example we ask it to write a PLSQL stored procedure:

Notice how the "insert" feature will drop the code provided into your development canvas automatically!

In this next example, we switched the language to JavaScript, and asked a question a bit more complex:

Create Applications using Gen AI

Besides the AI Assistant in the SQL Workshop, there's another very useful feature, this time in the App Builder!

Here another option is introduced, to use a conversational agent to generate apps, in addition to existing options like creating an app from a file!

This is a powerful feature to get you started with your application, and I am excited to see how it evolves in the feature allowing for more customization and increased usability, but it is definitely a step in the right direction!

Conclusion

As we saw, there's plenty of new features to be excited about in the way of Generative AI within APEX, and I am very excited to see how these features evolve over time, but they are certainly already powerful, particularly the Assistant in the SQL Workshop, and if you use APEX already, there is no reason not to jump on these very cool features!