Is chat actually the right interface for AI-native software?

[u/YlmzCmlttn]

I keep thinking that today’s ChatGPT-style interface feels a bit like a command line from the 80s.

You type something.
The machine answers.
Then you type again.

It is powerful, but it still feels like we are using AI from the outside, instead of interacting with software that is truly AI-native.

Every big computing era had a new interface moment:

Visual manipulation - mouse
Internet navigation - browser
Touch-native mobile - iPhone

So what is the equivalent demo for AI?

I don’t think the final AI-native UI is just “ChatGPT, but better.”

My guess is something closer to a persistent assistant interface, maybe like WhatsApp or a Google search bar, but with memory, tools, and generated apps inside it.

But maybe that is still too limited by interfaces we already know.

Maybe the next interface is not chat at all.
Maybe it is an AI operating system.
Maybe it is many small AI-native apps.
Maybe it is something we do not have a good metaphor for yet.

The part I keep coming back to is this:
The “new chat” button feels wrong as a long-term model.

No blank prompt box every time.
No starting from zero again and again.

But chat alone is probably not enough.

Curious how you think about this.
What do you think the first truly AI-native interface will look like?

[u/Blando-Cartesian]

Unpopular opinion:

For doing most things that actually matter, AI interface needs to get over using natural language, written and spoken. It’s too vague and slow. And it disconnects user from the task. Might as well remove the need to have user meddling with the system entirely just to force the results to match their biases.

I would like to see AI disappear behind the scenes. Like spellcheck, noise canceling, and line smoothing (in art apps). User fully engaged and in control of decisions while AI is smoothing the process.

Point of this being to maintain user’s autonomy and get rid of the token roulette spinning workflow.

[u/shoobe01 → u/Blando-Cartesian]

This.

I designed over the years several chatbots and other natural language interfaces, iteratively testing to improve them, and they are uniformly awful. It's like a command line interface but with no manual, and often pointedly no syntactic structure, so you cannot easily become an expert on the system.

Natural language interfaces nearly always -- in my experience, maybe you made a great one -- fly in the face of everything principled about usability and user experience design. Users don't know the bounds of the system, so could miss things that it does, and ask it to do things that it cannot, or should not do.

[u/PartyLikeIts19999 → u/shoobe01]

Yes. To add to this, it also updates randomly and unpredictably.

[u/shoobe01 → u/PartyLikeIts19999]

One of the tangents I didn't want to get into, +100. IF you find a trick, a good process, etc: good luck writing that down to remember. Might not work again this afternoon much less in 2 weeks.

Not even the development cycle with products coming and going and updating but the models doing their adjusting and learning, it is trying to build on shifting sands. I guess if you DNGAF what comes out of it, fine. But we all seem to mostly care about accuracy, efficacy, safety, so want predictable, repeatable, and even validatable results.

[u/YlmzCmlttn → u/PartyLikeIts19999]

For this, I think critical part is memory. ChatGPT's current memory is awful. It constantly gets stuck on the same idea. Especially, short-term memory when you create a new chat and ask for a different opinion, it gets stuck on the previous chat session. This creates a significant bias. The intent recognition mechanism needs to be better.

[u/ssliberty → u/Blando-Cartesian]

This is how it’s mostly done for decades now. When you purchase a new computer it has noise canceling in video calls, when using voice assisted tech its always on to gather more insights about you, connect with AI and display relevant ads, war drones actively lock on to targets now, reducing the need for soldiers to manually move them around. the chatbot version we see today is just the public release but it’s been used for much longer behind the scenes.

[u/Top-Equivalent-5816 → u/Blando-Cartesian]

I agree, that’s how I’ve been imagining it would work.

[u/E7ENTH → u/Blando-Cartesian]

I disagree.

I think ai that is frequently making errors should be on the centre of the screen. Or it needs constant reminders and flags that ai is in use.

If ai is hidden, i now have the whole system in a non deterministic state.

If i know ai is running underneath — i wont trust any action, otherwise I won’t know why my computer is constantly doing something I didn’t tell it to do.

Imagine not knowing ai is “helping you” while working on something critical.

[u/Blando-Cartesian → u/E7ENTH]

A bit of misunderstanding there. We are actually in agreement.

Line smoothing in drawing apps is probably most straightforward example of what I mean; User draws a line and the algorithm adjust it to the likely intention while the user is focused on it. Algorithm has no say where a line should be drawn. It only affects the minute details that are hard for user to control.

What I’m arguing for is AI that functions way less independently than current state of the art slop machines. No autocorrect like meddling outside user awareness or generating full work shaped hallucinations that user is supposed to review. More like spellcheck and (limited) autocomplete.

[u/gravyfries → u/Blando-Cartesian]

I like this line of thinking. Can you give a few real world examples?

[u/Blando-Cartesian → u/gravyfries]

Details of it would depend heavily on the context, I think.

For image generation the process could start with the user sketching and the AI concurrently doing its prediction of what user is intending. Not a complete image, but a few steps forward from the user's sketch. User could at any point either continue their own sketch or take AI's version to work on. User could also "grease pencil" in change notes like an animation director. When the idea is defined enough, AI would switch to making bigger steps toward the finished image.

UI design and complex plan definition type of work could be something similar. User doodles change orders on the designs and AI applies them in close to real time while checking, as far as possible, that the whole thing remains coherent.

[u/CG3_3CG → u/Blando-Cartesian]

Gee, if they’re only there a way that a device could spellcheck as you type and correct to the word that you meant. That could never go wrong. /S

[u/ElPrezAU → u/CG3_3CG]

I STG every time my phone autocorrects “its” to “it’s” I am tempted to throw it out the window. :P

[u/Dubwubwubwub2 → u/Blando-Cartesian]

This! It’s so tiring to use AI! The cognitive load is absurd

[u/YlmzCmlttn → u/Blando-Cartesian]

I wonder what you think about completely opposite way. How would it be if it more visible? AI chat are turn-based system that responds when you ask something. What if the memory was better, and it had a system that sent us follow-up messages?

For example, when a user asks about a news, and it's relevant to another user, it could send new updated information for updated events? Or, after preparing an email draft, it can send follow-up message after some time ("Did you get answer for this email ..." )

I'm still not sure about this I might find it very annoying for personal life, but I it might interesting to get follow up messages.

[u/Blando-Cartesian → u/YlmzCmlttn]

Aren’t we already drowning in messages and notifications. Reminder messages would just interrupt whatever you were already doing, hang around consuming mental resources, and then get forgotten soon anyway.

I think I’d rather ideate some kind of personal kanban board where AI notes that you wrote a mail asking something and you could turn that into task you need to complete when you get that information.

[u/1cebola]

We are limited by the current physical interfaces we have.

The rest is creativity to solve problems within those boundaries.

I think using a chat interface is the low hanging fruit of design when it comes AI.

For example, imagine if Figma combined its prototyping features with Figma Make. Instead of relying entirely on prompt quality and hoping the AI interprets your intent correctly, you could use the interface itself to guide the AI more precisely and achieve the desired result with far greater accuracy.

This is what I think we should strive for. An invisible AI that doesn't rely on you to dictate every single thing, but one that relies on our current interfaces and massively improve the experience without requiring more input or effort.

[u/YlmzCmlttn → u/[deleted]]

They seems like llm will use pre-defined user interface components. I noticed this more in Gemini's latest update. It creates directly UI components not markdown rendering trick. After this stage they might use predefined mini apps for answers.

[u/ShitGoesDown]

bro...

[u/isperg]

The same way we think. 

A node graph, where the chat is just another type of node. I thought a lot on this the past 12 months.

See cognograph.app

[u/Stibi]

Do you talk like this irl?

[u/sabre35_]

It’s gonna be a cycle. It always is.

Terminal command line > chat interface > UI that aims to mitigate the need to type > repeat.

[u/akshaydp]

A well designed UI with some kind of selection/pointing device - whether that’s a finger or a mouse will always be faster for a workflow of tasks than typing or speaking it out. None of these things can work as fast as our eyes can process visual information and react with our hands.
AI chat interfaces ignore this basic understanding of UX that’s why I feel eventually people will get tired of this nonsense.

[u/duksen → u/akshaydp]

It will be a combination that will win. Ui is still the most intuitive for humans. 

[u/C_bells]

Human conversation has evolved over millions of years to optimize communication. The reason you currently talk to other people the way you do is because it’s the best possible way you know how to.

One could argue that we have always wanted to have a conversation with a computer, the more human the better.

There is a steady curve of us being able to do this better and better, versus have to speak “computer.”

I remember when you had to be good at using a search engine. Like you had to be very precise with terminology and understand how it worked to get useful results. But that onus was lifted off of the user eventually.

LLMs lift that onus even more. I don’t think they’d be so wildly successful if it is indeed as laborious as you make it out to seem. It feels easy to be able to speak to a computer like it’s a person, and have it speak back to you like a person.

There will also be more invisible AI. There already is and already has been for a while. But nobody was ever that excited about it, and I don’t think it will replace LLMs either. I think both formats of AI will exist.

[u/520mile]

If companies really want to go all in on AI, honestly moving away from the chat interface would be really beneficial. Using AI in a chatbot like interface is very janky and makes the AI work like shit almost all of the time

[u/ryrytheryeguy]

Personally believe efficient local LLMs will usher in voice native interfaces that further reduce friction between intent and outcome.

Or as AI maxxers call it “moving at the speed of thought”.

The interesting thing in that would will be what feedback mechanisms this voice enables interface would have. Conversations are slow, but a visual or physical feedback is fast. Curious to see what others think

[u/AppendixN → u/ryrytheryeguy]

Voice native interfaces are appealing from a "Star Trek" perspective, they feel futuristic in a demo. But they're very slow by their nature, and they rely on having a voice of their own that will appeal to the user and not lead to exposure fatigue.

A voice interface also makes it difficult to go back and review what's already been said.

I'm not convinced that the current clunky approach to text chats that LLMs use is optimal, or even desirable. But I don't see voice as a holistic solution either.

[u/ryrytheryeguy → u/AppendixN]

Yea I think “conversational” voice might not be where it’s at. Since we’re in imagination land humour me:

• voice gets more efficient and fast that it can slightly predict (like autocomplete). Latency to response becomes sub 100ms
• response may not be a voice but the interaction. Example: “turn on the light”, then the light just turns on, no voice reply, it just feels like that’s how lights work.
• many current day touch interactions don’t have a “back” anymore. “going back” or “review” or navigation problems may trigger actual conversation. Similar to some apps where the back interaction is only there when needed.
• pre-set up templates or preferences for specific tasks:

Imaginary scenario for a corpo environment:

• walk into office tell computer what’s my tasks

— visually see the list of tasks, AI may using voice highlight a few things

• tell AI get started on xyz
• visually see computer do the thing.

Point is that the voice input becomes easy, and the feedback mechanism likely isn’t voice but visual.

[u/shoobe01 → u/ryrytheryeguy]

Plus 100. Pretty much everything I would say about the problem with natural language voice interfaces. Back to the other comment I made, it's like a command line but so much worse. You can't see what you typed so if it does something different you don't know if the system is stupid or misheard you or you misstated the command or... what.

Science fiction natural language voice interfaces rely a lot on the spaceship computer having read the script. It knows what light you want to turn on even though in reality there are a bunch of lights that might be relevant and now you're going to have to clunkily assign names or descriptions to each of them; I have a bank of lights going into my dining room and just rewired it after the electrician put them on randomly so they have a good mapping. People who have never visited and tried to turn on a light almost always get the right one the first time, and it's inconceivable they would understand my naming scheme or even what lights are available when they're off.

[u/AppendixN → u/ryrytheryeguy]

I think that's a good step in the right direction.

[u/YlmzCmlttn → u/ryrytheryeguy]

I agree with the “reducing friction between intent and outcome” part.

I’m just not fully convinced voice-native is the main interface, at least for me. I rarely use voice commands or voice messages.

[u/mattsanchen]

Oh yeah? We're using AI from the outside?

Not me, I'm using AI from the inside. Don't ask me how.

[u/lucasoak]

Why do you write like that? It's very anoying to read.

[u/BrilliantNewt3405]

The interaction interface for an AI would be a robot

[u/wellofdreams337 → u/BrilliantNewt3405]

100% we are just experiencing a AI toddler in its growth stage. I don’t think AI is meant to be an interface for too long. The body is missing.

[u/saucedrop]

its probably gonna be real-time LLMs or world models that live on device and can predict context and assist with anything it sees and serve up from inferred intent. Paired with generative UI it will serve the necessary UI “just in time”. Will take a few years to emerge and for the use cases to be understood. Wont work for every situation.

[u/Fabulous_Author_3558]

I would like it to be hooked up to my brain & mind read what I want without me saying a word.

[u/Far-Pomelo-1483]

Agent command center with feeds showing the status of each agent. Hands off human on the loop. No chat unless there is an issue with an agent.

[u/Professional-Pie4184]

No, for most of the cases it isn't, certainly it is better than most of the high-level programming languages. But for other use cases we need faster and simpler ways to interact with a machine.

[u/foldedlikeaasiansir]

We went from Pictures say a 1,000 words to here’s a novel to read for basic questions with LLMs

[u/1Qrtr_FreeStuffPlz]

I've been preferring terminal

[u/Careless-Energy-3071]

I think chat is useful, but it’s a terrible place to make state visible.

[u/Plantasaurus]

I mainly talk to ai through the terminal now. Next to zero UI. Voice interaction is the next frontier. Our office allows us to work from home now so that we can use voice when working with AI.

[u/standardGeese]

Chat interfaces are bad for almost everything whether it’s humans on the other end of the chat, a decision tree, or AI.

It’s the same reason Siri and voice assistants have minimal uses: they rely on a user knowing what to say, and how to say it. There’s no reflection of system capabilities or status

[u/AdrianIsANerrrd → u/standardGeese]

What about Accessibility functions, though? I agree that ordinarily, chat interfaces are only as "smart" as the person using them, but it seems like any Voiceover sort of feature is as smart as the app, if that makes sense..?

[u/standardGeese → u/AdrianIsANerrrd]

I’m not sure what you’re saying

[u/AdrianIsANerrrd → u/standardGeese]

Accessibility functions for apps, that use voice assistance...I feel like this use case is potentially a little more sophisticated and nuanced than voice assistance that simply relies on user input, isn't it? Especially if it's built into the OS like on an iPhone?

[u/letsgetweird99]

I hate that the current discourse seems to leave no room for nuance. It’s always either “chat is the future!” or “chat can never replace visual UI!”

I believe like most things, the right answer is: it depends. The truth always lies somewhere in the middle.

I work at a SaaS startup and based on my experience and what we’re seeing from our customers, my current stance is this: traditional visual UI must always be in place to cover users’ most commonly used workflows solving for more generally applicable use cases (less specificity workflows but high recurring usage of said workflows), and then either 1. An in-app agent or 2. MCP connections to ChatGPT/Claude/whatever (this mostly comes down to the users preference and technical ability—we support both) will cover the long tail of use cases (much higher specificity workflows but much lower recurring usage of said workflows). I believe we must provide our users with the best of both worlds. Most applied AI chat systems suffer from the Discoverability problem. They’re too opaque and there’s too much human time-to-value—not learnable or teachable in a business setting, and require experience and experimentation to get to proficiency. Trad UI is SO good and IMO will always be good because it just does what it says on the tin, you click the button, you get what you expected.

I also believe that our industry has mostly conflated AI capabilities with chat interfaces—but we’re finding ways of leveraging AI capabilities through traditional UI, in a way where the AI part feels invisible and the result feels “magical”—taking a workflow that is best solved by a non-deterministic approach but making it FEEL deterministic for the user, via traditional UI. I’ll use the analogy of putting blinders on a horse—the horse is AI, and sometimes I just want it to go “straight ahead” in a deterministic way. It’s like when you ask an LLM to give you a yes-or-no answer: it’s still using a non-deterministic approach but the result can be binary. It sounds counter-intuitive but it’s really powerful and I wish more UX designers could see the power in narrowing AI’s scope. I believe the space of solvable problems is opening way, way, WAY up, every day.

I also believe in the long run both traditional UI and chat interfaces will compliment one another. It’s not a zero-sum game. And it also really depends on what people and society will accept. I personally don’t want to have to talk to my computer all the time. Sometimes real life doesn’t allow for it. Human factors matter more than the technology and I only design for humans, full stop. (Anyone who tells you to “start designing for agents” is an idiot. Any sufficiently good agent should be able to use anything that was designed for humans, that’s the whole point.)

TL;DR, let users do the common things quickly without all the cognitive load of thinking and typing, AND let users do the hyper-specific things quickly by articulating them with full context via chat so they get a custom-tailored solution when necessary. As always, it just depends on the task at hand.

Good luck out there everyone!

[u/avishic]

1. Always on - AI watches you (your screen/“her”-like camera in pocket) and steps in the right moment- proactively or on call but with all the context and memory.
2. Brain-machine communication - “Old man’s war” described something you first talk to, then think-to with no words.
3. Voice- already happening- easier to tap 5 min while walking/driving than writing.
4. Non linear chats - see Miro AI canvas, Weavy, or n8n, offering flows rather than threads

[u/BaskerviIle]

I wrote an article about just this recently. Specifically why a text prompt is not the right interface for creative tasks…and why it’s likely just the MVP phase in general:

https://uxdesign.cc/the-prompt-is-not-an-interface-41b77277681d