Reflecting on the Power Platform Conference Keynote
One way to wake up an arena full of people who haven't had enough coffee is to open the keynote saying something they love is dead!
That's exactly what Charles Lamanna did as he opened up the Power Platform Community Conference in Las Vegas last week. But not without making it clear "as we know it". Spending the rest of the keynote outlining the bold moves Microsoft is taking to ensure that there is a place at the table for their current low-code platform to evolve into the rapidly changing AI tooling landscape.
With Microsoft's latest "builders" for Microsoft 365 and Power Platform plan designer morphing into more of an integrated development environment, Microsoft has embraced the idea of removing the original low-code abstraction layer in favor of generating directly a full stack app.
More specifically, previously users could vibe "I want an app that manages my orders" and a Power App would be created that the user could express the logic and user experience by crafting Power FX. Under the covers the runtime had a full stack application that the user used. While this approach worked well to abstract much of the complexity of full stack apps from the makers, it had limitations that were built into that abstraction layer.
With the emergence of LLMs capable of bridging that layer, it can be removed and still stay true to the idea a person building a solution doesn't need to worry about the abstraction and can still say "I want an app..." and can further guide its evolution of the solution using a Copilot interface that the orchestration underneath manages a team of agents to bring to life the envisioned solution that is focused on business outcomes it improves and not the technology it uses.
Power Platform’s core mission of democratizing development evolves into an AI-accelerated paradigm to build faster and smarter while preserving the maker-centric ethos. The same "no cliffs" of the platform building blocks would continue to allow the solutions to reach out to the broader Microsoft Azure capabilities as needed to handle larger complexity and scale tasks.
It's fun to look back over the last 10 years ago as the merger of Dynamics CRM/365 (aka the Xrm Platform) and Power Apps /Flow grew up to allow 56 million monthly makers to create solutions.
I have to admit when I wrote this book in 2008, I had no idea how the evolving AI landscape would continue to shape its evolution today. I think if I were to look for a cover image today it would be a rocket ship instead of a speeding train!
So what happens to Power Fx? It doesn't go away, but don't expect to see major enhancements to it.
Do I need to learn how to build full stack apps? That is clearly not their goal or intent with the changes. With that said like anything that a human operates, the more you understand about how it works the more likely you will be able to navigate challenges easier. For example, you are operating a chainsaw and the chain comes off. If you have already replaced a chain before, you will do it quicker than someone operating the chainsaw for the first time. But then again that is why we collaborate across teams of people with different skills. That doesn't change - I still believe the best way to build solutions is a cross functional team working together to a common goal.
Should I start over with all my apps? Are they working for your users? If so why would you throw away a perfectly good app? With that said in most cases you might look at where you can infuse some AI if it would make the app user more productive. In some cases you might also want to use the newer tooling to envision how you might build the solution the future.
I have to give Microsoft credit for recognizing the magnitude of the technology change we are in and that change was required. Continuing mission without change would definitely lead to a competitor taking the lead in this space. There are certainly many vying for an opening from traditional players like Salesforce and Google, to new players like Lovable and Replit. I would say sit back grab some popcorn and watch it play out, but there is no time for that so instead go build something with the new app builders once they come out in preview :)