This is the next step in responsive design and the blueprints are lurking all around us. The coding agents now let you add skills — simple descriptions of how to accomplish a task written in natural language. You might explain to your agent how to get data from an internal API to help you create your quarterly update, for example. But if you really want a great look at what the future may hold, try this: on an iPhone or Mac, open the Shortcuts app and start searching through the available commands exposed by each app you have installed. There, you’ll find a remarkably clear visualization of all the atomic components of an app’s capabilities. All the nouns and verbs.
Imagine where software could go if something like this gets built into the OS — an evolved Shortcuts, with a smarter Siri (lol) able to build the app that you need exactly how you need it.
I’m not sure what that means for apps as they are now, built by professionals. Will we have more software, but fewer developers? Will apps as prepackaged products lose importance over what they enable — the skills or data sources they add?
The AI chat interface is proliferating across apps, but it seems more likely we will be bringing our own favourite assistant to them, pulling and accessing specific capabilities. The acronym AX, standing for agent experience, started appearing in the past year to describe how an agent interacts with a product as a user. The question is: will they be the primary user?
Mathias Biilmann (Netlify CEO), clarifying what AX can stand for:
Is it simple for an agent to get access to operating a platform on behalf of a user? Are there clean, well described APIs that agents can operate? Are there machine-ready documentation and context for LLMs and agents to properly use the available platform and SDKs? Addressing the distinct needs of agents through better AX, will improve their usefulness for the benefit of the human user. Too many companies are focusing on adding shallow AI features all over their products or building yet another AI agent. The real breakthrough will be thinking about how your customers’ favorite agents can help them derive more value from your product. This requires thinking deeply about agents as a persona your team is building and developing for.