Inside Writer

– 6 min read

Introducing Writer AI Studio

The fastest way to build apps on a full-stack generative AI platform

Sam Julien

Sam Julien   |  June 5, 2024

Writer AI Studio developers

We’re excited to introduce Writer AI Studio — a suite of development tools that make it fast and easy to build feature-rich AI apps on the Writer platform.

  • No-code: an intuitive tool that enables anyone to build apps that automate workflows, generate assets, or answer questions on company data.
  • Writer Framework: an open-source, Python framework for building feature-rich apps that are fully integrated with the Writer platform.
  • Writer APIs: API endpoints for integrating Writer generative AI technology into apps or services within your own stack.

Writer AI Studio abstracts the complexity of our full-stack generative AI platform into an easy-to-use development environment — allowing you to focus on building AI apps, not stitching together a complex stack. Our flexible development options, off-the-shelf templates, and easy-to-use tutorials help you get started quickly and scale effortlessly.

Building and deploying apps using AI Studio is free; you’ll only pay for token input and output when using Writer LLMs. New users will receive free tokens when they create an account. Start building today or see our pricing for more details.

The increasing importance of full-stack generative AI

Most developers don’t like building generative AI apps — and for good reason. ​​In a recent study, Writer found that only 10% of businesses had high confidence in their ability to build generative AI solutions. Current AI app development tools are either overly complex to setup and maintain or too rudimentary to support sophisticated use cases.

Model builders are shipping increasingly capable APIs, but building generative AI apps requires more than just a model. Developers must assemble a complex stack of tools for inference, RAG, process management, feature extraction, and more. Toolchains can ease this burden, but they don’t remove the fundamental complexity of building your own AI stack. The ubiquitous AI chat app can be valuable for specific use cases or productivity improvements, but often lacks the customization options needed to support more complex enterprise use cases. Hyperscalers provide full-stack offerings, but configuring these platforms can take teams of engineers months of effort, and even longer to improve and refine them to meet enterprise-level accuracy and quality requirements.

Writer has helped over 250 leading enterprises, such as Accenture, Dropbox, L’Oreal, and Vanguard, build AI apps on our full-stack, generative AI platform. We’ve shipped thousands of apps on our integrated system of LLMs, which achieve top scores on industry-leading benchmarks like Stanford HELM; Writer Knowledge Graph, our graph-based RAG approach that’s more accurate and affordable than alternatives like Vector DBs; and customizable AI guardrails that enforce your brand, compliance, and legal rules.

Together, these features create a fully integrated enterprise platform that can support use cases ranging from knowledge assistants connected to company data, to campaign automation apps that generate a suite of launch assets from a single input, to RFP apps that can streamline operational workflows. Until now, these AI apps were only available off-the-shelf or custom-built by the Writer team. Now, with AI Studio, we’re expanding access to our full-stack generative AI platform by making it easy for you to build your own AI apps and workflows.

Build fast with a visual editor and extensible Python backend

As part of the release of AI Studio, we’ve acquired the team behind the open-source project Streamsync — now known as the Writer Framework — and integrated it into the Writer platform. Like Streamsync, the Writer Framework will remain open source as part of our commitment to contribute to the broader Python and AI engineering communities.

The Writer Framework goes beyond traditional chat app development to enable the rapid creation of a wide range of AI-driven solutions, from data analysis tools to interactive dashboards. A developer-friendly visual editor and extensible Python backend help you iterate quickly by significantly shortening development cycles. The framework’s library of composable UIs and tutorials make it quick and easy to get started developing applications.

While the Writer Framework remains open source, it’s deeply integrated with our full-stack generative AI platform. With just a few lines of code, you can access our sophisticated APIs directly within your AI apps — no need to build a stack.

import writer as wf
import writer.ai

def handle_simple_message(state, payload):
    state["conversation"] += payload
    for chunk in state["conversation"].stream_complete():
        state["conversation"] += chunk

initial_state = wf.init_state({
    "conversation": writer.ai.Conversation(),
})

Today, this includes our chat and text completion APIs. In the coming months, we’ll expand our API capabilities to include access to Knowledge Graph, our graph-based RAG for integrating data into your own AI apps and services.

Once your app is created, we’ve simplified the launch process with a single-command deployment to the Writer cloud. Additional deployment options, including on-prem and more cloud providers, are coming soon.

writer deploy app_name

We invite you to take a look at the GitHub repo and use it for your own projects. To install the Writer Framework, run the following command in your terminal with Python 3.9.2 or higher installed:

pip install writer

Then create a demo application by running:

 writer hello

For more information on getting started with the Writer Framework, see our Quickstart guide.

Expanding access to AI app development with no-code tools

Sometimes apps don’t need sophisticated backends or complex UIs. That’s why we’re excited to include no-code app development tools in AI Studio.

No-code apps built with AI Studio are both accessible and customizable. Unlike other AI tools, Writer doesn’t just help you improve prompt performance or build the all-too-common AI chat app — ‌it accelerates AI innovation across an entire organization by enabling anyone to build apps with specific inputs, customized outputs, and personalized instructions.

With our no-code tools, you can:

  • Build AI apps that can generate an entire campaign from a single asset, act as powerful assistants, tackle challenging operational workflows, and more.
  • Connect apps to your data with our graph-based RAG by uploading files or automatically syncing them with data connectors for your most important sources.
  • Provide written instructions, chain prompts, and inject variables from user inputs for more complex tasks.
  • Add examples of previous work to help Writer create results that match your unique style, format, and goals.
  • Create apps that write in your style or the voice of specific thought leaders.

No-code apps can be accessed directly from Writer, or embedded into an application with a code snippet.

AI Studio’s no-code tools empower developers to quickly spin up AI apps to streamline tasks and business users to reinvent their workflows. Together, developers and business users can build and collaborate on AI apps with powerful no-code tools accessible to anyone.

Our commitment to fast, reliable AI app development

Our vision is to make building AI apps fast and easy for anyone. Writer AI Studio is our first step towards achieving this vision. We invite you to try out AI Studio, build your next app, and send us your feedback. We’re excited to see what you think.