2025 was a year of focused progress for Better Studio. Instead of chasing major version jumps, we concentrated on improvements that help care teams and developers of all backgrounds and skill levels deliver safe, interoperable forms, assessments, dashboards, and widgets faster.
Across four releases, we strengthened low-code tooling designed for healthcare, launched AI assistance where it adds real value, and invested in a learning and collaboration ecosystem that brings people together around data for life. Let’s revisit some of the main milestones we reached in 2025.
Product development
2025 was an intense and rewarding year for our development and design teams. Every improvement we delivered had a clear purpose: to make Studio faster, safer, and easier to use for everyone. These areas defined this year’s progress:
Data connectors: safer and simpler integrations
One of the most significant architectural changes in 2025 was the introduction of Data connectors, replacing the older shared API connector feature.
Data connectors now prevent unintended cross-form impacts and make external data usage safer and easier. It supports dynamic dropdowns and real-time lookups without introducing complexity, reducing surprises during testing, and simplifying maintenance. All of these improvements make Studio an even better solution for our existing user base.
“With Data connectors, we removed friction from API integration by making integrations first class citizens in Studio. Teams can now define APIs once, expose key artefacts directly, and reuse them consistently across resources and projects. This brings stronger control, safer changes, and faster delivery, setting the stage for even more powerful low‑code capabilities next year,” said Benjamin Muhič, Better Studio Product Director.
Artificial intelligence: from concept to practical support
For artificial intelligence to become a working part of Studio in 2025, we needed to start with a vision of what AI means to Studio. Our goal? To ensure AI features were not only technically sound but genuinely useful for our users. Today, there are many AI tools and features available, but not all of them are actually helpful to the end user. Sometimes, they rather add complexity than remove it.
Working closely with our Innovation team, we’ve focused on bringing AI into Studio in a way that helps users complete tasks and find relevant information without having to rely on external tools, switch context, duplicate work, or share sensitive information elsewhere. Most importantly, we wanted to provide something concrete, so we turned immediately to our user base with questions.
After extensive initial internal team discussions, followed up by our users’ direct feedback, we were able to define where AI could add value without compromising safety or usability.
AQL Assistant
Creating reliable AQL queries used to require specialist knowledge and time. Our Query assistant changes that. Integrated into the AQL builder, it helps users write queries in plain language, explains syntax, and troubleshoots errors. When a query fails, the assistant identifies the issue and suggests fixes. This reduces trial-and-error cycles and accelerates data binding, so teams can focus on building clinical experiences rather than decoding error messages.
AI Support in documentation (DocGPT)
Finding the right guidance quickly is essential. Our AI documentation assistant (DocGPT) enables users to ask questions directly in the documentation interface and receive clear answers with links to relevant pages, without having to search specific terms and hoping you will land in the right section of the documentation. With DocGPT, users stay in their workflow and reduce the time they spend searching for answers when they most need them.
“The launch of DocGPT and the AQL assistant marked the start of an ongoing journey, informed by close collaboration with our users and guiding principles for building AI responsibly. Rather than adding AI for its own sake, our goal has been to ensure it delivers clear, practical value in everyday workflows. This approach will continue to shape our AI efforts in 2026,” explained Maruša Hrobat, Better Studio UX Researcher.
User experience: designed for clarity and safety
Navigation and form design improvements were a priority in 2025. The new navigation system, introduced in version 3.11, makes moving through Studio faster and more intuitive. Common modules and actions are easier to reach, reducing time spent searching for tools, making it more user-friendly.
Form builder enhancements include Stack layouts for flexible composition, Helper text, Character counters, and Container descriptions. These features improve clarity for end users and reduce errors, making forms feel more like guided interactions than administrative tasks.
Another improvement for how users manage and create new projects was the project setup wizard, which consolidates multi-step configuration into a single guided flow, reducing onboarding time and misconfiguration risks. Combined with the improved Version switcher, teams can align development cycles with supported releases more easily.
Martin Šoštarič, Better Studio Design Team Lead, said: “Improving navigation and layout was all about making Studio feel intuitive and predictable. When users can find what they need quickly and build without friction, productivity and focus follow naturally. These changes lay the foundation for richer content and more advanced workflows in the future.”
Better Design System: raising the bar for consistency
2025 was also a landmark year for the Better Design System (BDS). The team delivered the next generation of BDS, introducing more than 50 new web components and patterns that make building healthcare applications faster and more consistent.
These components are designed to meet accessibility standards and clinical safety requirements, ensuring that every interface is not only visually coherent but also usable and compliant. By standardising design elements, BDS reduces variability across projects, accelerates development, and supports a unified experience for teams. It is the foundation that enables Studio to scale without sacrificing quality.
“The continued growth of BDS opened up new possibilities for creating clinical content in Better Studio, balancing productivity with creativity. 2025 was a defining year for standardisation and expansion, setting a strong foundation for what’s ahead in 2026,” told us Valentin Grudnik, Better Design System Team Lead.
Marketplace: accelerating delivery with ready-to-use content
The Marketplace evolved from a modest set of widgets and templates into a curated library of clinically validated resources. By year-end, it offers 10+ widgets, 30 forms, 7 templates, and 2 content bundles, specific for endocrinology and cardiology. These clinically verified components are designed to be reused and adapted, helping teams save time while maintaining clinical safety.
We also introduced default widget presets, so widgets arrive pre-configured with sensible defaults, ready for users to personalise. This reduces setup time and encourages consistent design patterns across projects.
Alja Suljić, Better Marketplace Manager, explained: “When good work is easy to find and safe to reuse, our teams and users move faster almost by default. Better Marketplace is about creating that shared foundation, so progress builds naturally from one project to the next.”
Investments in our user community
Better Studio is not only a product, it is a community built on openness, learning, and collaboration. In 2025, we strengthened these foundations through education, engagement, and co-creation.
Better Hive: learning that accelerates adoption
Better Hive was established as the central learning hub by Better. For Studio users we launched the Better Studio basic and advanced courses, designed to help new users move confidently from concept to implementation. The courses cover simple project setup, form design, Marketplace widgets, and multilingual support, all the way to more complex aspects like scripting, APIs, and query setups.
“Adoption happens when people feel confident using the tools. Better Hive gives them that confidence through practice, not documentation, by letting them build working applications and see how everything fits together in real workflows,” said Tilen Petek, Growth Manager.
Studio building hour: practical learning in action
This year marked the launch of Studio building hour, a new initiative designed to bring practical build alongs directly to our Studio community. These sessions provide hands-on demonstrations of real-world use cases, help users build confidence, and how to apply best practices in Better Studio.
For our first live event, we were able to build together a complete diabetic specialist nurse referral management form, which is now available to all Studio users in our Better Marketplace. In 2026, we will continue with these sessions, which will provide support to new users, and deeper insights to experienced ones.
“It’s great to have started this initiative in 2025 and there’s lots more planned in 2026. With these step-by-step build alongs, we can showcase how Studio can address real-world challenges by bringing the capability to design and create solutions directly to those who understand healthcare,” explained Ian Bennett, Better Studio Product Specialist.
User groups and co-creation: shaping the future together
We continued to invest in our user group sessions. In 2025, we held a total of 3 sessions. Their goal was to engage with our power users, understand their needs, and provide solutions in future iterations of Studio. These sessions have become a space where power users can share and express their challenges, pains, and ideas.
The insights gained from these sessions directly influenced our roadmap priorities and usability improvements. They led to clearer onboarding and continuous learning through new Studio-specific courses, easier access to support within Studio, and a new series of guided build-along webinars showcasing clinically relevant use cases.
It also informed improvements to our existing AI features and the addition of several new concepts to the roadmap, including ambient voice capture and an omnipresent Studio AI assistant.
Maruša Hrobat, Better Studio UX Researcher said: “Our user group sessions go beyond just collecting feedback – they’re about building trust and creating a safe, shared space where ideas flow both ways. By collaborating closely with our most active users, we turn their unmet needs and pain points into concrete improvements, strengthening both Studio and our partnership with the user community.”
Looking ahead: 2026 and beyond
The foundations laid in 2025 set the stage for progress in 2026, which is exciting not only for the Better team, but also for everyone involved in our growth and progress. As in 2025, the new year will be focused on several tasks and improvements, such as:
- More and better content: Expanded Marketplace libraries and AI-assisted documentation will make guidance available in context, reducing friction and accelerating delivery.
- Collaboration module: Formalising teamwork with multi-author workflows, review steps, and safe sandboxing will make collaboration seamless.
- App builder: Moving beyond forms to complete workflows and micro-apps, unifying navigation, data binding, and packaging under one AI enabled low-code platform.
2025 was a year of practical, user-centred progress. We made Studio smarter, faster, and easier to use, while reinforcing a community that learns and creates together. Every improvement reflects our commitment to open standards, modular design, and solutions built for care teams. The journey continues in 2026, with collaboration and innovation at the heart of what we do.
“2026 marks a defining chapter for Better Studio. We are evolving from a powerful set of tools into a healthcare-specific low-code application platform. One designed for the complexity, responsibility, and impact of clinical work. Building on the foundations of 2025, our ambition is to make Studio feel effortless to use, yet powerful in what it enables. Collaboration should flow naturally across teams, content should be abundant and reusable, and creating complete clinical applications should feel as intuitive as designing a single form does today.
Our goal is to help healthcare organisations design, adapt, and scale digital solutions with confidence, without compromising safety, interoperability, or clinical trust. By doing so, Better Studio aims to empower teams to meet today’s challenges while shaping a future where healthcare innovation is faster, safer, and more patient centred,” predicted Benjamin Muhič, Better Studio Product Director.
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