Just wanted to share an observation.
For decades, we've been designing on-screen buttons for users to do things. Of course, we've added to the early desktop metaphors from Xerox and Apple, but manipulating controls on screens is still primarily how software has been designed. When ChatGPT came on the scene in 2022–23, there was a lot of discourse in UX circles about how the chat UI was just a stepping stone. There aren't enough affordances. There's the blank-page problem. How do users know what to type or say? How will users know the capabilities? Over time, we added some affordances like suggestions and examples, but they've been pretty minimal. I've long agreed that chat wasn't enough.
But I think I've changed my mind. Chat might be enough as a starting point—it might be the UI for AI now and in the future.
There were two aha moments for me. About a year ago, I reviewed ChatGPT Atlas, OpenAI's now-defunct AI-enabled browser. I ran an experiment by giving it my grocery list and asking it to fill my Whole Foods shopping cart. It took much longer than if I'd done it manually, but it did free up my time to do something else. Since then, Amazon has incorporated Alexa for Shopping and can add the same list to my cart in a fraction of the time.
Then, recently, I asked Siri AI (the chat app, not the voice assistant) to check my contacts for a list of names and to add or update them. It did it in under 30 seconds and saved me at least 10 minutes of looking up and clicking and typing.
We started to play with generative UIs to make responses from LLMs richer. But ultimately, if AIs are to do more than just answer questions, if AI agents do things for us, then we need to be able to directly manipulate the artifacts they generate. Who wants to use tokens just to adjust colors or type sizes?
I recently designed and built a design system for a client. Instead of starting the traditional way in Figma, I decided to brief Claude Design like I would a junior art director. I gave it context—a creative brief and included the branding materials—and asked it to come back with five directions. I iterated with it until I got two that I liked and just used direct controls to polish those before presenting them to the client. I worked like a creative director, something that I've been doing for—at this point—most of my career.
I'm now working on a more complicated workflow product. Designing a product like this—similar to n8n and Zapier, but specialized for an industry—is really complex. And making it user-friendly is even harder. But if the user could use plain, natural language to at least get the first draft, then it could be much easier.
I think about how the computer on Star Trek was essentially this: voice-activated plain language. They still had controls for tactical and helm, but when it came to investigating or problem solving, it seems the characters always started with a computer query in natural language.
The more I work with computers and programs in 2026, the more I just want to use plain language to tell it to do something. Two years ago, I wouldn't have trusted the LLMs to get it right. Now, I think we're there.
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