PM’s AI toolkit - Lovable review

 

In this series of posts I will test and tell (see what I did there?) my thoughts on different AI tools available to PMs. And we start from the most recent and exciting - AI agents category.

What are AI agents?

Put simply, AI agents can do things for you. Unlike most known chatbots like ChatGPT - AI agents can perform actions and create "stuff" while still being prompted by text.

AI agents can write code, create pictures and videos, some even can control your operating system and perform different tasks.

For PMs, AI agents can analyse data, create mockups and prototypes, or even create full products - code, design and all. It is still early doors for AI agents but the future looks very exciting - finally PMs would be able to create products end-to-end, on their own, having full control, just like a "mini-CEO" 😅 So soon we'll see if that leads to a dawn of new super apps or PMs gain more appreciation for their colleagues in design and engineering.

But let's get back to AI agents, and more specifically - product creation AI agents. There are plenty of options on the market already. Some just write code, others can create working apps in full. Those we will focus on first. As this is a test - I need to set the test criteria. Those are

• Time to create a working product
• The need to modify code directly
• Could be done on a free plan?
• How easy it is to deploy and share your product
• Have I succeeded?

Product example

To test the Al agents I needed a product idea, simple enough to not take ages to create, but slightly more challenging than just a pretty landing page. For my company, I often need to convert currencies to keep my accounts in order. So I decided to create a little product that will make this easier by allowing me to insert the date of transaction, currency used for payment, and the amount paid. It should take the exchange rate on the day of the transaction for the currency paid in and then convert the amount paid into GBP.

Lovable

...is your superhuman full stack engineer that promises to create a product in seconds. Let's see how it works and if we'll enjoy working with that superhuman. 

Sign up and interface

It's super easy to get started with Lovable - account creation takes seconds and they support a bunch of 3rd party logins like Github (preferable as it stores your code there).

The interface is really straightforward - you have your chat interface on the left and the preview of your product on the right. Every prompt could trigger an action and a code change, plus you can always revert back to one of the previous versions (for example, if your idea didn't work out or you want to rephrase your prompt).

You can view your code directly in Lovable, but you can't edit it. For editing, you need to export your code to GitHub and edit it there. 

Creation process

The main way to interact with Lovable is their chat interface. I found it to be really good at understanding my intensions and executing my requests with practical, immidiately visible results.

It also takes a bit of liberty in adding things I didn't explicitly asked for or prompted genericly. I found those to be mostly useful and adding to my product.

The big advantage of Lovable in comparison to other tools in this category is their visual editor, which works together with the chat interface. So you can create an initial view of your product with a text prompt and then edit every bit of it in a simple, visual way. This adds flexibility in the product creation process and allows you to save your precious prompt tokens.

Integrations and using APIs

Lovable provides an easy integration with Supabase (to store your data) and Github (to store your code). They also could host your app so you don't need to worry about the deployment for your MVP.

I found using APIs is also easy with Lovable. In my product, I needed to get the currency exchange rate on a given date for a selected currency. That was easy to do by just prompting Lovable to get the needed data from the API endpoint and providing it with your API key. Lovable even suggests you how to make your code safer and how to adhere to the best coding principles.

Deployment and sharing the product

Lovable free plan allows you to deploy your app on their infrastructure with some conditions - your app should be publicly available for other Lovable users to see and "remix" it.

Deployment takes seconds and you get a publicly available url where anyone can see your app. You can optionally move your code to Github to share it as well. Your data is available in your account in Supabase and you can fully manage it there.

Results

• Time to create a working product - less than 1 hour.
• The need to modify code directly - no need.
• Could be done on a free plan? - yes, I was able to build, modify and deploy a product without paying a cent.
• How easy it is to deploy and share your product - super easy and live within seconds.
• Have I succeeded? - yes, I was able to create a fully functional product and make it available to everyone.

Final remarks

I was surprised how easy and fast product creation is in Lovable. It really is just like texting with a really capable and super fast coder. The combination of the chat interface and visual editor is the unique selling point of Lovable. I liked that they don't try to push you hard to buy credits or subscribe to a paid version.

Lovable could be extremely useful for PMs in all sorts of discovery activities. We can visualise our ideas for our peers or potential clients. We can create prototypes fast and test them with real people. We can even create simple MVPs that will actually work. I am very impressed with Lovable already and excited to see what it could do in the future.