AI is the new UI

The future has arrived early. If you are reading this article, you have made a choice.

A choice to evolve. AI isn’t coming for your job, but someone using AI is.

A split image — left side is a robot hand touching an interface — right side is text saying AI awareness — AI isn’t coming for your job but someone using AI is
Source: Author + AI

Now, before you flame me on the design of the graphic, let me explain: I made this in literally one second flat using Canva’s new OpenAI-powered “Magic Design” tool. If I curated a better image and tweaked the typography and color palette, this would be a more than passable design.

A screenshot from Canva — website that shows an animation of their new magic design feature

Canva’s beta tool was just one example from OpenAI’s DevDay 2023 opening keynote illustrating where the tech is going not in the coming decades or years but weeks and months. The overarching takeaways are clear:

  • Very soon, you will be able to seamlessly speak ideas into reality.
  • Custom GPTs (versions of GPT that provide instructions, extended knowledge, and actions) will be instantly available to serve your specific needs.
  • You’ll easily build assisted experiences for your clients and customers with your own apps. (Currently, OpenAI’s Assistants API.)

In demoing Assistants API, Romain Huet, Open AI’s Head of Developer Experience, summed up where we currently are in the evolution of AI:

“That integration allows our natural language interface to interact fluidly with components and features of our app, and it truly showcases now the harmony you can build between AI and UI where the assistant is actually taking action.”

In other words, we’re in an era where the tools available to everyone have democratized what is possible. Pretty much everything from your smartphone to your car and household items is powered and supported by some form of machine learning and AI. Software/hardware and the physical world are officially connected.

Clearly, fighting these technologies is futile. Instead, we need to step up now to…

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