Can corporate ERP, RPA, BPM, CRM, and BI be scaled without a developer? Is it possible to automate business processes using natural language teams? Could we modify websites and e-commerce platforms in the same way? And set up corporate email, telephone
These tasks may now be feasible with the advent of the first Extreme zero-coding platforms. We discussed automation trends and the cost reduction in corporate software development with Jean Klushke, project manager at one such platform – PLATMA.
In his projects, Klushke combined work on attracting investments in innovative zero-coding solutions with marketing innovations in the field of codeless technologies.
The measure of expertise is usually the result, and Jean’s work was so successful that in 2025, he became the winner of the prestigious CatalyX Champions Series Awards 2025 in the “Emerging Digital Innovator” nomination, beating 500 competitors. We decided that Jean is the person who can tell us what zero-code can and cannot do in business today.
The zero-coding revolution in the development of corporate information systems is already underway. In 2023, Gartner predicted that by 2025, the share of new business systems created on zero-code, no-code, or low-code platforms would reach 70% of all corporate software being developed globally.
Jean, what is Extreme Zero-code? Why is it being discussed as a significant advancement in the evolution of no-code platforms? How will the growth of startups in this domain impact businesses?
Until recently, Extreme Zero-code was merely a concept suggesting that no-code software would eventually reach a higher level of sophistication. No-code solutions have been around since the 1980s, initially driven by the development of the 4GL programming language, which aimed to expedite application development. Users could simply input data into predefined functions without needing to write traditional code.
In the 2000s, Business Process Automation (BPA) tools introduced drag-and-drop visual components, allowing users to assemble workflows. However, when system requirements changed, the inflexible nature of these “constructors” often meant reverting to traditional, costly development requiring highly skilled engineers.
Throughout the 2000s, low-code systems gained popularity, enabling effective management of visual components while relegating the more complex tasks to conventional programming languages. The notion of Extreme Zero-code envisions platforms that can autonomously execute commands given in natural human language.
These platforms would be so adaptable that they could automatically modify themselves in response to changes in business processes, legislation, or the software in use. The emergence of such platforms would undoubtedly transform the business landscape, especially for many small and medium enterprises that cannot afford expensive development.
This limitation hinders economic growth both globally and within individual countries. Developments in the field of no-code at the new level are carried out by different companies. But PLATMA, where I work, is probably the first startup that turns the dream of corporate development without code into reality.
As far as I know, our startup, which is just going through acceleration (pre-seed stage), supports the first platform where you can simply pass text formulations to the neural network about how you want to reconfigure, say, a customer support chatbot. It does everything “turnkey” and then presents the result.
Did I understand correctly that the Zero-code revolution has happened, but most businesses are not aware of it? I know that at PLATMA you are responsible not only for attracting investments, but also for marketing. How to promote an innovative product on the market if no one has heard of it before? Are you doing it?
Unfortunately, you are right. Today I saw publications about how zero-coding does not significantly reduce the speed of development in practice. It takes time to break the inertia. But now it is already a matter of technology.
As a sole Project Manager in PLATMA, I have done the main thing – painstaking work with information. I started by arming myself with Google Analytics 4 and conducting a thorough analysis of how, who and what is searched for in our area.
Then, I offered the management a detailed go-to-market strategy, targeting telecom and banks. I bet on them because the problems that were solved with the help of our platform in these areas were so acute that the establishment was ready to try anything, even something unfamiliar, to solve them.
Then, the accumulated success stories were supposed to influence the rest of the market. My marketing strategy, coupled with the capabilities of the startup accelerator we work with in the USA, allowed us to accumulate a clientele of 10,000 companies.
I found several new B2B channels for finding clients. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a year we will have several thousand or million clients. The presentation of an innovative product at representative venues plays an important role.
For example, I managed to make certain progress in understanding the new zero-code after participating in The Digital & Ecom Event Conference in 2024. It was held in Yerevan, and many representatives of the business community learned about it.
Please tell us about successful cases of Extreme zero-code application from your practice.
My practice is the practice of using PLATMA. The startup has not yet deployed its SaaS platform on a full scale, because we are going through investment procedures in the accelerator. Now we are at the pre-seed stage, where we are launching our activities in Kazakhstan and the MENA countries (Middle East and North Africa) in test mode, then a full launch is planned for 2025.
But we already have excellent implementation cases. For example, the results of using the platform in ESP, a climate management business, were recently summarized. Our product was used to automate climate data analysis, create reports, and automate other operations. As a result, ESP saved more than 90% of development costs.
Instead of $17,000, which was the estimated cost of the IT company’s work, ESP specialists spent seven hours and $12 working with our platform, having received the desired result. Clients had no complaints about customization, integration with their programs (in recent years, much has been done to seamlessly install zero-code on any DevOps infrastructure).
There are many successful cases. Our headquarters are in the USA, but we already have more than 10 thousand clients around the world. There are figures: several thousand applications have already been created using our platform around the world: Ukraine, Cyprus, Portugal, Kazakhstan.
Everywhere, this corporate software works, is supported, and clients constantly tell us in reviews about saving time, as well as investments in development and support. There are a lot of positive reviews from representatives of small and medium businesses in Central Asia, Europe and the USA.
You said that pre-seed is directed to Kazakhstan and MENA? What does this mean?
I will explain in order. The idea of our project appeared in 2022. Then, in 2023, we presented several MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) to investors as part of the acceleration of our startup. These are minimally ready versions of the product, on the basis of which you can test the interest of B2B consumers in the startup’s products.
By the way, most of our investors come from the CIS, primarily from Kazakhstan. Our largest investors, who invested $500,000 in us, are Kazakhstani structures: Almaz Capital, EA Group. It was quite natural to send the pre-seed to Kazakhstan, since it was the venture business from Central Asia that turned out to be the most active in our niche of digitalization startups.
The region itself is very actively developing as an IT innovation zone. In the recently published rating of countries and regions by digital competitiveness, it ranks 34th. This result is better than that of Portugal, Poland, and other countries in Europe and America.
The country, like its Central Asian neighbors, is building the most advanced IT infrastructure: 5G networks, clouds, a “smart” city. This is also true for MENA. The infrastructure there is not as developed as in Kazakhstan, but Chinese companies Huawei, ZTE, and others, including within the framework of the Digital Silk Road program, are very quickly creating a base for the development of modern IT. And where there are good conditions for the implementation of projects, there we are.
Zero-code for business is often compared to RPA tools. What do you think about it?
RPA tools (Robotic Process Automation) are tools for automating business processes on neural networks, where “machine learning”, that is, how AI should automate your business processes itself, you carry out with the help of prompts, information communicated to algorithms so that it accumulates the “experience” you need. PLATMA is a completely different story.
How many prompt iterations are needed to train RPA? How to control its work? How much can it do with an error if it is given a low-quality data set? This requires the involvement of machine learning specialists, for example, prompt engineers, neural network specialists. And we return to where we started: to huge costs, mind-boggling development times.
And does Extreme Zero-Code work differently?
Of course. The same revolution of “artificial intelligence” is at the heart of success, only the result is completely different. Firstly, the same PLATMA is more universal; it is potentially capable of developing your entire IT infrastructure, and not just automating business processes. Modern zero-coding and extreme zero-coding tools combine AI with machine learning.
The specialist does not try to prepare professional prompts so that everything works as it should, but simply explains the task in human language, like in GPT chats. Systems, PLATMA in particular, itself chooses the necessary algorithms and tactics. In fact, we are talking about the full integration of RPA, IoT devices (cyber-physical systems), such as smart doors, cameras, as well as cloud services and AI.
If in other systems the integration of neural networks leads to vulnerabilities, then modern zero-coding offers functions of corporate automatic data encryption according to various standards: HIPAA, SOC2. There are many options.
The security aspect of our platform is also related to the integration of blockchain into it. Ordinary employees can create smart contracts with our software without the participation of developers – agreements with users automatically executed by the software.
How will Extreme zero-code change the business landscape and IT?
With the advent of practical implementations of Extreme Zero-Code, the practice of citizen developers, zero-code developers, will flourish, because such solutions reduce costs not even by 70%, but by 90% with much greater scalability, which is already comparable to the flexibility of code in traditional programming languages.
Citizen developers are developers who create corporate software without even knowing the code. Zero-code will quickly replace traditional development in those areas where, due to constant updates, small, template edits to the accumulated code base are required, for example, in the work of electronic governments and legislators.
Drag-and-drop platforms, even equipped with AI, will not yet become as flexible as real code, but they will narrow to the limit what can be called a “specific task” for which neither zero-code nor low-code is suitable.
Then, I foresee the emergence of interfaces that integrate zero-code with other technologies, in particular, virtual and augmented reality devices. It will be possible to do complex work at the intersection of drawings and technology, which previously could not be done without preliminary training in the field of 3D modeling.
Why do you say that the main target audience of your startup is small and medium businesses,?
Of course, we are glad to have all our clients, but the greatest interest in no-code is shown by small companies.
Development is so expensive that they can rarely afford it. Some companies with a staff of 50 people can drag out for years the implementation of something better than document flow in Excel, only because the implementation of complex IT systems does not always lead to the expected results, is very expensive and does not have a clear end date for the project.
And this situation with deathly silence, when the implementation specialist did his job and left? And expensive training? Zero-code opens access to digital transformation for small and medium businesses and can prevent some of the problems with competitiveness in the economy that IT in its current form can cause.
Society as a whole is waiting for another explosive growth in efficiency, which can even change something in our way of life. Maybe we will walk on different streets, consider the problems that used to bother us solved. This is what zero-code brings to us all.
According to the latest research, the market for zero-coding and no-coding solutions in the world grow at a record pace of 22.7% annually until 2027. Like any technological revolution, the advent of the displacement of traditional code from corporate development is associated with pitfalls for companies and opportunities for radically increasing efficiency.
Proven tools and experts with experience in implementing projects in the field of zero-code infrastructure will help you successfully get through this difficult period. Such as Jean Klushke. It is important first of all to realize that technologies are changing at a breakneck speed.
Prompts for machine learning in robotic corporate systems, which still seem like a novelty to many, are already being replaced by faster and more comprehensive codeless technologies.
