Rich Holmes (@richholmes): "Google's former CEO says traditional user interfaces "are going to go away." It sounds far-fetched but Google is already rolling out the technology to make it happen. It's called A2UI - and it's quietly transforming how products like Opal and Gemini generate interfaces on the …"
Author: Substack
Description: Google's former CEO says traditional user interfaces "are going to go away." It sounds far-fetched but Google is already rolling out the technology to make it happen. It's called A2UI - and it's quietly transforming how products like Opal and Gemini generate interfaces on the fly, personalized to each user in real-time. Why this matters for product teams Instead of designing fixed screens, with A2UI you're defining a vocabulary of components that AI agents can dynamically compose based on user intent. Designers focus less on screen layouts, more on flexible component libraries. Engineers build rendering pipelines, not bespoke UIs. A simple request like "book a table for 2 tomorrow at 7pm" can generate a pre-filled form - collapsing 3-4 screens into one contextual interface. The strategic implications External agents (OpenTable, restaurant systems) can send UI through your app while respecting your visual identity. This enables a "headless agent" business model; you provide the speciali [cell cut: 1630 characters, first 1000 kept]

### The app for independent voices

Jameela Jamil
3h

Wrote a piece about how we raise women to be wives but don’t raise men to be husbands. And how that imbalance is fucking us all the way up.

Nobody gets to feel like a fun whore in the house anymore. Sad.
Nobody gets to feel like a fun whore in the house anymore. Sad.
Jameela Jamil

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Rich Holmes
Jan 20
Department of Product

Google's former CEO says traditional user interfaces "are going to go away."

It sounds far-fetched but Google is already rolling out the technology to make it happen.

It's called A2UI - and it's quietly transforming how products like Opal and Gemini generate interfaces on the fly, personalized to each user in real-time.

1. Why this matters for product teams

Instead of designing fixed screens, with A2UI you're defining a vocabulary of components that AI agents can dynamically compose based on user intent.

Designers focus less on screen layouts, more on flexible component libraries. Engineers build rendering pipelines, not bespoke UIs. A simple request like "book a table for 2 tomorrow at 7pm" can generate a pre-filled form - collapsing 3-4 screens into one contextual interface.

1. The strategic implications

External agents (OpenTable, restaurant systems) can send UI through your app while respecting your visual identity.

This enables a "headless agent" business model; you provide the specialized intelligence (booking, CRM, expense management), partners provide the surface. Charge per agent interaction, take rev-share on transactions, or license access to your agent network.

Platforms that host these agents become more valuable when they have rich component catalogs that make third-party agents look native and polished.

Google's already using this across some of its experimental new products and v0.8 of the protocol is now live.

Read the 🧠 Knowledge Series with technical workflows, real implementation examples, and hands-on tools: departmentofproduct.sub…

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