Ultracold quantum gases are excellent platforms for quantum simulation and sensing. So far these gases have been produced using time-sequential cooling stages and after creation they unfortunately decay through unavoidable loss processes. This limits what can be done with them. For example it becomes impossible to extract a continuous-wave atom laser, which has promising applications for precision measurement through atom interferometry [1]. I will present how we achieve continuous Bose-Einstein condensation and create condensates (BECs) that persist in a steady-state for as long as we desire. Atom loss is compensated by feeding fresh atoms from a continuously replenished thermal source into the BEC by Bose-stimulated gain [2]. Our experiment is the matter wave analog of a cw optical laser with fully reflective cavity mirrors. The only step missing to create a continuous-wave atom laser beam is the addition of a coherent atom outcoupling mechanism. We are now using our new techniques also to tackle another challenge: the creation of continuously operating optical atomic clocks, in particular superradiant and zero-deadtime clocks [3,4,5,6]. These clocks offer new possibilities from fundamental science to real-world applications.