What Is Generative UI?

Plotly just shut off their Chart Studio web app and “replaced” it with a desktop app called Studio. That desktop app requires LLM chat input for every action. It uses this pattern and trying to figure out the magic words to make it do the basic tasks you have been doing with 3 clicks for the last decade is infuriating. Especially when you realize your data was local to your browser tab unless you saved it before and now it is unconditionally uploaded to a remote server with no obvious way to delete the data.

Forcing chat for every action when direct UI interactions worked fine is definitely not what I'm advocating.

I'm arguing for isn't chat-only interfaces. It's giving users both options: use the UI directly for quick changes you already know how to make, chat when you don't know where to find something or you have a complex multi-step task.

Different users will prefer different methods for different tasks. The goal is software that works how the user wants it to work, not just optimized for one interaction style.

Remote LLMs is a real constraint right now.

I'm hoping for a class of generative apps that can be run entirely locally. I believe it will exist, just not right now.