GenAI features are rapidly popping up in products across industries, from fintech ( Ramp, Brex) to design ( Adobe, Figma). Nearly every day, somebod

UI/UX in the age of Generative AI - by Andrew Gao

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2024-11-01 16:30:03

GenAI features are rapidly popping up in products across industries, from fintech ( Ramp, Brex) to design ( Adobe, Figma). Nearly every day, somebody ships a new AI feature to much fanfare on X.

Yet while some GenAI features have taken off (Cursor Tab, Claude Artifacts), most have gone to the growing graveyard of flashy but forgotten novelties. Many products go immensely viral, driving thousands of signups. Yet most users don’t come back, usually either because they were disappointed or because the product wasn’t truly useful.

I believe that the discrepancy in outcomes arises, in part, from a failure to understand how GenAI UI/UX differs from previous paradigms.

In this article, I’ll discuss four areas where GenAI features differ from pre-GenAI features. I’ll also give examples of GenAI features that get each right. Only GenAI features that require active user interaction will be considered. For example, this excludes Amazon’s use of LLMs to summarize product reviews.

Frontier models are generally reliable yet also unpredictable when it matters. User don’t get to control what comes out exactly.