HERE launches Studio for no-code apps in regulated firms

HERE Enterprise has launched HERE Studio, an app creation environment for non-technical employees. It is aimed at workers in regulated industries, including banking, healthcare and the public sector.

The software lets employees build work applications in natural language and publish them within the HERE Enterprise Browser. HERE positions it as a way for staff outside IT to create tools for everyday tasks while staying within existing governance and security controls.

HERE Studio is designed to work with an organisation's approved artificial intelligence systems rather than a single model provider. According to the company, that includes Claude Enterprise, ChatGPT Enterprise, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and proprietary models used internally by companies.

It also restricts apps to a firm's own data, application programming interfaces, model context protocol resources and retrieval-augmented generation systems. Applications are generated against an AI contract covering design standards, theming, data classification, interoperability, API entitlements and security policy.

The launch reflects a broader push by software suppliers to extend AI-based app development to workers without coding skills. In regulated sectors, however, concerns over data handling, user permissions and deployment environments have limited the use of many public cloud-based tools.

HERE said its system is deployed into a governed workspace already controlled by the customer rather than the public cloud. Organisations can decide who gets access to the app-building environment and set permissions for finished apps through existing identity and access management systems, including Microsoft Entra and Okta.

One example from HERE involved a sales manager creating a start-of-day dashboard that pulls information from eight systems at once and presents it in a personalised layout. That dashboard can then be published to a wider team, with individual users adjusting their own layouts.

Browser-based model

The software is built into HERE's browser-based workspace, giving resulting apps access to features already present in that environment. These include real-time interoperability between applications, theme awareness, notifications and layouts tailored to particular roles or tasks.

Apps and widgets can also be assembled into dashboards called Supertabs and distributed across an organisation. Employees can then alter their own workspace without changing the core app made available to the team.

HERE appears to be differentiating itself from stand-alone AI app builders by tying development directly to the work environment where employees already access software and data. That may appeal to large organisations seeking tighter control over the distribution and use of internally built tools.

"AI promises to give anyone the freedom to build their own apps, attuned perfectly to their needs. But for thousands of workers in regulated industries, that simply isn't a reality," said Mazy Dar, Chief Executive Officer, HERE.

"With HERE Studio, employees in sectors like banking, healthcare and public sector can reap the productivity benefits of building their own apps, but within a completely secure, vetted, controlled enterprise environment," Dar said.

User interface

HERE also framed the launch around how workers interact with software, not just how apps are built. It argued that many users prefer visual interfaces that present selected tools and data in one place instead of relying on a sequence of text prompts.

That view is relevant as large software providers and startups alike compete to define how AI changes the front end of enterprise software. Rather than replacing systems such as Salesforce, ServiceNow or Atlassian, vendors are increasingly trying to reshape how employees access them.

Jonathan Brierly, Chief Experience Officer at HERE, said the company sees software moving towards more personalised interfaces built around individual workflows. He linked that shift to internal research on employee behaviour.

"We're entering an era of hyper-personalized software where essential applications like Salesforce, ServiceNow, or Atlassian will be available via a variety of interfaces and the user will choose how they want to experience them," Brierly said.

"As we know from our time and motion studies involving hundreds of workers, the vast majority prefer a visual interface rather than a chronological string of text chats. Users will create personalized layouts, with custom apps and widgets that surface only the data they need for the specific task at hand, without switching tabs or learning how to compose the perfect queries. We believe there is nowhere better for this to happen than within a secure enterprise browser that is packed with features that actively support productivity," he added.

HERE said HERE Studio is available in preview to customers of HERE Enterprise Browser. The company said it is already used by 90% of global financial institutions and also has clients in government, defence and healthcare.