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UIs are evolving from the fixed, static screens we've viewed for decades to generated 'just-in-time' projection layers that appear as simple text boxes.
Recently, Salesforce announced "Headless 360," in which Salesforce, Agentforce, and Slack platforms are now exposed as APIs, MCP, and CLI to agents, which can access data, workflows, and tasks directly, with no browser user interface (UI) required.
Also: I built two apps with just my voice and a mouse - are IDEs already obsolete?
Salesforce is the bellwether, of course. The future of UI is increasingly geared toward catering to agents, which doesn't require compelling graphics, clickable buttons, or entry points. This transition was explored by Michael Grinich, founder of WorkOS, who offered observations and predictions at the TypeScript AI Demo Day in San Francisco in April, stating, "We are exiting the UI era."
UIs are evolving from the fixed, static screens we've viewed for decades to generated "just-in-time" projection layers that appear as simple text boxes, Grinich stated. In many cases, people will no longer be interacting directly with UIs -- applications will deliver results via APIs tied to AI outputs or agents. Interfaces that users see, he explained, will be "disposable -- a one-time use interface that just gets generated on demand and then poof, it's gone. And when you need a new one, just make a new interface."
This opens a new phase of software development -- today's and tomorrow's solutions are becoming more self-driven and autonomous. "Software is shifting from these interfaces that you operate to systems that produce outcomes," he said. "The user expresses an intent, a suggestion, an idea, and from that you send it to the model, and the model is what creates the UI and actions."
In the process, AI is rearranging the human-computer interface -- and, ironically, makes computing more human-centric. Generative AI, one of the fastest-growing technologies of all time, presents a simple text box that asks, "What do you want?" he explained.