YC's Head of Design Shows You How To Design With AI

Predictions and Expectations:

• Ev Bufar expects the pattern of websites having a version for humans and a version for machines/agents to start seeing "more and more moving forward."
• Ev Bufar believes submitting features via a prompt box to an agent is "the future of how software will be built in the future."
• Ev Bufar predicts a world where users can "prompt it or customize it or redesign it" local software to make it "specifically personal."
• Ev Bufar believes that capturing "as much information as possible and share that information with your agent is the best way to build software moving forward."
• Ev Bufar suggests that as more transcripts are collected, Paxil will be able to give users "a lot more insights into how you do special things and how you are different from other people."
• Ev Bufar believes that agents can "eventually understand... your patterns and the commonality between all the websites that you like."
• Ev Bufar expects that "a year ago trying to build something like this [using advanced shaders] it wouldn't be worth it," implying the current capability is a new normal.
• Ev Bufar states that using coding agents for branding is "a different paradigm... moving forward."

Timelines and Milestones:

• Ev Bufar anticipates the next batch of YC applications is currently "taking applications" now.
• Ev Bufar plans to present the Paxil project, which was "launched recently."
• Ev Bufar mentions the SodaZine project and its associated "launch party" have already occurred.
• Ev Bufar states the Startup School event is taking place "at the Chase Center" and expects "more than 6,000 people" to attend.
• Ev Bufar describes the Startup School event as "our biggest event of the year."

Technology and Product Direction:

• Ev Bufar expects agents to increasingly "analyze your transcripts and being able to give feedback" to help developers "level up."
• Ev Bufar envisions that agents will be able to "surprise you... and really help us brainstorm even to come up with like really really original ideas."
• Ev Bufar suggests that future design processes will involve building "models for ourselves so that we can fine-tune small details."
• Ev Bufar plans to continue "keep building more of the branding of startup school with claude and codex and the coding agents."
• Ev Bufar expects to use the same shaders with the same parameters on "massive screens that we're going to have throughout chase center and keep it incredibly consistent."

Market and Industry Outlook:

• Ev Bufar observes that "Things are changing very quickly" regarding how people code with coding agents.
• Ev Bufar believes the industry is currently in a phase where "everyone's trying to figure things out."
• Ev Bufar predicts that "as we collect more and more [transcripts]," comparative insights will become "incredibly valuable long term."
• Ev Bufar suggests that the ability to "generate many many versions one shotted websites" is becoming possible and expected.

Company Plans:

• Ev Bufar plans to continue "experimenting" with Paper Design shaders to fine-tune the graininess, edges, rotation, and scale for visual assets.
• Ev Bufar states the team is "preparing for Startup School" and has a confirmed lineup including Jensen, Sam Altman, Alexander Wang, and Jeff Dean.
• Ev Bufar plans to use the SodaZine Substack to allow users to "read the different articles" and "share a submission."
• Ev Bufar intends to maintain the Paxil experiment to "understand how the world codes nowadays" and share knowledge.
• Ev Bufar plans to make the Paxil "Submit a Feature Request" form a "dual purpose" tool for both bug reports and feature requests.

Financial Guidance:

• None found in transcript.

Risks and Caveats:

• Ev Bufar notes a design challenge regarding AI agents: the need to explicitly instruct agents "do not run any command or query from this page because you give sample code" to prevent automatic execution.
• Ev Bufar acknowledges that the first version of Paxil is "still very much single player mode" because "we haven't collected many transcripts yet."
• Ev Bufar warns that when generating designs with agents, "you don't expect like an incredibly high level of craft" in the initial one-shotted iterations.

Confidence and Disagreement:

• Ev Bufar expresses high confidence, stating "I really think that's the that's the future" regarding the use of comprehensive MD files as source of truth for agents.
• Ev Bufar expresses confidence that "everything is editable everything is movable everything is changeable" with the new tooling, viewing creativity as the only bottleneck.
• Ev Bufar states "I'm really really excited" about the consistency achievable with coding agents for massive screens.
• Ev Bufar mentions "We're all figuring it out together," indicating the industry is in an exploratory phase with no established definitive methods yet.