AI form builders have exploded in popularity over the past couple of years, offering a fast, easy way to output working data collection tools.
Because of this, we now have a huge number of AI form generators to choose from, including from most of the big names in the form builder space more broadly.
However, it’s also important to note that this comes as part of a wider rush for SaaS brands to implement AI functionality. This means that the actual quality and usefulness of specific tools can vary quite widely.
In this second part of our guide to AI forms, we’re diving deep into the market for AI form builders.
Specifically, we’ll be covering:
Let’s start with the basics.
As the name suggests, AI form builders are platforms that leverage LLMs to help us build data collection UIs more quickly and easily.
This can work in a few different ways, but the most common is allowing us to generate forms from a natural language input.
For example, we could ask for a contact us
or change request
form. The form generator would then determine the required data schema for this, before placing it into a working UI within its own builder.
Most of the big-name form builder tools now offer this within their platform, and often embedded on their website as a lead magnet too. The goal is to make it faster and easier to output a working solution, or at least a basic version of one.
In most cases, forms will still require some element of customization within the wider form builder, including modifying the generated data model or tweaking the design.
Besides straight-up generation, many form builders offer more advanced AI-powered functionality.
This comes in a few distinct categories:
Naturally, which of these we prioritize will vary depending on our specific use cases. For example, AI-driven analytics tools are probably only helpful for high-volume forms, whereas AI-driven workflows are increasingly a critical part of a huge range of internal applications.
Now that we have a better grasp of what AI form generators are and what they offer, it’s also worth considering the concrete benefits and other practical considerations in more detail.
As we hinted at already, the core value-add here is enabling us to build forms more quickly and easily. To understand this better, it’s useful to consider the broader experience of teams that need to output custom forms.
This is about the most repetitive internal development task there is. That is, in just about every industry, teams are tasked with outputting huge numbers of forms, across a variety of different workflows.
Depending on the complexity of individual use cases, this is typically handled by IT teams using a low-code platform, or by colleagues in the relevant department using a no-code form builder, although some highly advanced use cases might be hard-coded.
At their core, AI form generators seek to expedite this process by reducing the initial lift required to output a solution.
Similarly, where individual platforms offer additional capabilities, like AI-driven workflow automations or data analysis, the goal is ultimately the same.
That is, providing AI-powered experiences for tasks that would otherwise require more extensive human-led actions to perform, empowering technical and non-technical colleagues to do these more quickly and easily.
However, before we start thinking about how we can choose specific AI form builder platforms, it’s also important to be realistic about some of the potential limitations, challenges, and downsides of this type of form building.
One key element to be aware of is that, often, the more specific our requirements are, the less likely AI generation is to be the right approach.
For instance, if we already know the exact fields we’d like to include in a form, the likelihood is that it would actually be faster and easier to build this manually in whichever platform we select, rather than going down the route of AI generation.
Similarly, many dedicated form builders are highly opinionated, including in terms of design, data modelling, and other aspects of our form solutions. As such, for less straightforward use cases, after AI generating a form, there might not be sufficient scope for customization.
One important aspect of this is the fact that most off-the-shelf form builders are limited in terms of the data types they support. Most only offer a built-in database, with no support for editing the schema of this independently of our form UI.
This won’t be viable if we have more sophisticated data modelling needs, or want to connect to an existing SQL database or API endpoint.
At the same time, many form builders prioritize the speed with which we can output professional UIs, at the expense of customization or flexibility.
Lastly, AI form builders raise some important security questions. Most often, platforms don’t offer the flexibility to choose which LLM we rely on or how our data is shared with it. This could naturally be problematic for many teams.
Before we check out some of the specific platforms that are available on the market today, we’re going to outline some of the key decision points that we’re going to encounter along the way. In other words, what factors can we use to determine which platform best suits our needs?
As with any software procurement decision, this draws in a range of interrelated issues, including:
The important thing to understand, however, is that the significance of each of these will vary from one team to the next. This can be informed by your target use cases, budget, user personas, and other factors.
So, when considering AI form builders, it’s crucial to have a clear picture of your own specific requirements in order to make an informed decision about which specific platform can offer the most value.
With a clear idea of the specific decision points we’re likely to encounter when comparing and contrasting AI form generators, we can begin to look at some of the most prominent platforms on the market today.
As there’s a decent amount of variation between these, in terms of their target usage and customers, we’ve chosen a range of platforms to represent the full scope of what’s out there.
Specifically, our picks are:
Let’s check each one out in turn.
Budibase is the open-source, low-code platform that empowers IT teams to turn data into action. With leading external data support, highly customizable autogenerated UIs, and powerful AI-driven automations, it’s the perfect solution for advanced forms use cases.
Budibase offers dedicated connectors for a huge range of RDBMSs, NoSQL tools, APIs, and more, alongside our built-in, low-code database, which supports CSV uploads, dedicated data types for LLM operations, and AI-generated schemas.
Once we’ve connected our data, Budibase can autogenerate fully working, highly customizable forms and CRUD UIs. The Budibase app builder offers extensive customization, including optional CSS and JavaScript, mobile-friendly designs, conditional UIs, and more.
Our visual automation builder is the perfect solution for triggering workflows on form submissions, including an extensive library of triggers and actions, LLM operations powered by a range of models, and looping and branching logic.
Check out our features overview to learn more.
Our users choose Budibase for all kinds of advanced form use cases. In particular, it’s highly optimized for IT teams that need to build data collection UIs for request management, approval apps, ticketing systems, admin panels, CRUD operations, and more.
Budibase is also the clear choice for security-first teams. With free SSO, custom RBAC, optional self-hosting, air-gapped deployments, and more, Budibase gives teams full control over how and where their form data is stored and secured.
On top of this, Budibase is ideal for busy IT teams that need to output professional solutions, at speed, including multi-player collaboration and reusable data sources and automation rules within Workspaces.
Budibase pricing is designed to scale. You can build as many applications as you want for free, for up to five users in the cloud or twenty if you self-host. Our free plans even come with SSO for all users.
Paid plans start from $5 per month for end users and $50 for app creators. This also introduces custom branding, reusable code snippets, Budibase AI, creator access control, PDF generation, and more.
Custom enterprise licenses are available, with enforceable SSO, audit logs, PWA support, script injection, air-gapped deployments, and other enhancements for large organizations.
Take a look at our pricing page to find the Budibase plan that’s right for you.
Next up, we have JotForm. As probably the best-known SaaS form builder on the market today, it’s a great choice for less technical colleagues that need to output professional forms and other data management UIs, with ease.
(JotForm Website)
In the past couple of years, JotForm has also established itself as a leader for AI-powered form building. In particular, JotForm is an attractive offering for teams that need to generate forms, as well as performing more advanced AI functions.
As part of this, it offers an AI form generator, which can be accessed for free on the marketing site.
This performs well at understanding the context of the form we’re asking for and suggesting fields based on this. The form that’s created is largely unstyled, although it does place shorter text fields into columns.
In terms of AI, however, JotForm’s strengths are more apparent when it comes to follow-on workflows from form submissions. There are tools for creating apps, automations, AI-agents, and chatbots, positioning JotForm as a good fit for more complex form-building use cases.
You might like our round-up of the top JotForm alternatives .
TypeForm is another highly prominent form builder, which is particularly popular for multi-step, customer-facing use cases.
(TypeForm Website)
Out of all of the big-name form builder tools, it’s also one of the more impressive offerings in terms of AI-assisted experiences. This includes an AI form generator that forms a fully integrated experience within the platform.
Notably, this offers specific prompt formats for different types of forms, as well as a more generalized option, helping to guide users through the process of providing relevant context to the model.
Besides this, TypeForm’s AI tools for building forms are extensive, including capabilities for matching design assets to your brand, optimizing content, and drawing qualitative and quantitative insights from submitted data.
On top of this, one of the platform’s most impressive features is Clarify AI, which can dynamically ask follow-up questions to open-ended questions, in order to guide end users to submit the precise information that we require.
(FormStack Website)
Formstack is a no-code form builder and workflow platform, which is particularly well-suited to internal admin use cases, with a range of capabilities including document generation, electronic signatures, and more.
Like TypeForm, full AI generation is offered as a core experience within the platform. This is powered by Claude, offering a strong experience for outputting form drafts based on prompts describing the target workflow.
On top of this, Formstack also offers AI generation for fillable document templates.
So, compared to many other AI form builders, this means that Formstack is a particularly strong option for empowering non-technical colleagues to transform complex, document-focused workflows.
Formstack also offers AI-powered automation tools within the platform, opening it up to a wide range of use cases for handling processes based on form submissions.
Feathery is a powerful, AI-driven form and workflow builder that’s specifically optimized for the financial services space.
(Feathery Website)
Although it offers an effective AI form generator, which is accessible within the platform, choosing this option to create a form simply redirects to the embedded generator on the marketing site.
One particularly impressive aspect of Feathery’s AI form builder is its document extraction capabilities. With this, we can upload PDFs, and Feathery’s AI will convert them to forms to create fillable document templates.
Once we’ve generated a form, Feathery is also one of the most highly customizable form builder tools. There are extensive opportunities to use custom code within the platform, as well as API connectivity and JavaScript/React SDKs.
This makes it a highly powerful solution for technical teams, although this could be slightly constrained by its tighter focus on financial use cases.
Lastly, we have Zoho Forms. Part of the wider Zoho ecosystem, Forms is a powerful, intuitive form builder platform, suitable for teams of a range of different sizes.
(Zoho Forms Website)
Like many off-the-shelf solutions, Zoho provides an AI form generator within its platform. This has a couple of nice quality of life enhancements, including the ability to select a content tone from a dropdown or adjust our initial description to regenerate a form.
Like Feathery, we can also generate form UIs based on uploaded PDFs, enabling us to use Zoho forms for dynamic document generation.
Zoho’s AI capabilities are powered by Zia, their built-in AI assistant. This facilitates a range of follow-on workflows from form submissions, including email content generation and AI-powered translation.
For more complex use cases, we can also use AI features across the wider ecosystem, including within the Zoho Creator app building platform.
Budibase is the open-source, low-code platform that empowers IT teams to turn data into action.
We offer dedicated connectors for a huge range of data sources, autogenerated forms and CRUD UIs, powerful AI-driven automations, optional self-hosting, custom RBAC, free SSO, and much more.
Take a look at our features overview to learn more.