I've spent a lot of time thinking about interfaces recently. What is the value of a great user interface in a world with AI-assisted and agent-driven work? Since ChatGPT, Claude and other chat-based AI assistants were introduced, some have suggested that UIs are not necessary or optimal anymore. I have a slightly different take.

I believe what's really going on is that chat-based AI assistants give you so much power and flexibility that generally isn't available in most UIs, and due to this fact, we would often choose a chat-based interface over something else.

I think that graphical UIs are going to catch up pretty fast to become a vital companion to chat-based UIs. In fact, there's something really delightful about using a great graphical UI in combination with a chat-based AI assistant.

We've been thinking about this a lot at Buffer. To make Buffer feel awesome to use in this new world, I think a few things are vital:

• That you can do everything you can do in the web and apps via chat-based AI assistants. This means a solid API, MCP, CLI.
• That the graphical UI is truly real-time. You want to be able to work with a chat-based assistant while having the graphical UI open, and see changes happen immediately. This is going to be a big one for us to tackle at Buffer soon.
• The product is geared around flexibility, interoperability and customization. If you can personalize the UI to your needs, and you build on it easily, you'll feel great about it. If you can connect the product easily with other platforms, you will feel in control of your workflows.
• The ability to interact with the product in a back and forth manner towards great outcomes. This is really what chat-based AI assistants excel at, but there’s no reason the general paradigm can’t apply to many different user experiences.

I continue to think that great UIs are a big part of the future, even with the advent of chat-based AI assistants and voice control. I think they won't be utilized 100% of the time in the way they have for the past decades, they will be one of many interfaces to products. I personally still want that interface, and my expectations for the graphical user interface have actually increased.