GenAI has a killer app. It's coding, says Databricks AI head Naveen Rao

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Unlike many experts who are still awaiting a killer app in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), Naveen Rao, vice-president of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) at Databricks, says the world already has one -- it’s coding. "We're seeing a lot of developers actually latch onto this, especially younger developers.

LLMs (large language models) have also worked on code (besides text, images, audios, videos, etc.), and we're already seeing design automation happening through coding assistance. It (coding) is a sub-class of a much larger class of uses around true design automation," Rao told Mint in a recent video interview from his San Diego office. Rao asserts that with many coding tasks getting automated, the ability to innovate in product design and create unique user experiences will become even more valuable.

"You can now create apps simply by describing them in English. As a result, the value of translating a design idea into an app has diminished because much of that process is now automated," he says. Being a developer will mean using AI tools effectively, says Rao, adding that the focus will shift to understanding why certain apps succeed while others don’t.

Rao underscores, though, that “it will take 3-5 years to engineer these systems to be reliable and deterministic enough to be able to use them in core engineering." The reason is that GenAI still struggles with “hallucinations" (incorrect or misleading results) and lacks true reasoning capabilities despite claims to the contrary by some big tech companies. "Current LLMs primarily pattern-match based on probabilities, not reason. Unlike humans or even animals that learn through a cycle of action and feedback, LLMs