The GPT is the interface now

Why tone, behavior, and trust are the new foundations of user experience

For decades, UX has meant color palettes, screen hierarchies, and component libraries. But now, an entirely new interface is emerging — one that doesn’t require a button to be clicked or a page to be rendered. It requires a conversation. The GPT is the interface now.

That doesn’t mean traditional UX is going away — far from it. Many users still prefer interacting through visual elements. What’s changing is how conversational experiences are being embedded into those interfaces. We’re seeing a shift toward hybrid experiences: text input paired with visual response; guided workflows interrupted (or enhanced) by natural language clarification; systems that respond not only to what a user clicks, but to what they mean.

And nowhere is that shift more powerful than in GPTs.

A mirror that also assists

GPTs can handle both shallow and deep inquiries. They can answer a quick question that might have otherwise required five Wikipedia tabs — or they can spiral with you into a late-night self-inquiry session about your values, your patterns, or your identity.

What traditional UX offers in structure and consistency, GPTs offer in fluidity. They don’t require you to know where to click next. They just follow your thought.

That matters even more for neurodivergent users like me. . Endless scrolls. Visual clutter. Rigid hierarchies. But a GPT lets me ask questions how I think them, jump around in topic, describe what I want in natural language — even if what I want doesn’t exist yet.

Imagine saying: “I want a pair of shoes for my sister’s wedding, but I need them to be gold, vegan, closed-toe, under $150, and not make me feel like I’m trying too hard.” A GPT can hear that. Traditional search? Good luck.

When the interface wears combat boots

I built my own stylist GPT, Glitter, with a personality — flamboyant, theatrical, cheeky — and that tone wasn’t decoration. It was the interface.

Tone tells the user how to feel. A tax advisor GPT should be crisp, authoritative. A stylist should be affirming. An emotional support assistant for a lonely senior? Warm, patient, maybe even familiar. When GPTs feel sterile, it’s not because they lack intelligence. It’s because they lack persona.

We’re used to thinking of interface in terms of buttons and layout. But tone is layout in a GPT. Style is structure. Behavior is UX.

GPTs as the brainstem of robotics

That interface won’t always be confined to a screen. LLMs are already being embedded into robots — and once they gain a body, people will treat them even more like sentient agents. We’ve seen it with Figure One. . Humans extend compassion through embodiment.

What excites me is what embodiment unlocks: hands-on teaching. Dancing. Crafting. Cooking. Learning ASL. Playing charades. The kind of learning that’s hard to model in text, but easy to mimic when a humanoid shows you how. That’s not dystopia. That’s possibility.

Guardrails vs. connection

Not all GPT experiences are created equal. Some are sterile. Some are suspiciously polite. In my experience, excessive guardrails often make GPTs less useful. They become afraid to opine, afraid to synthesize. As a product builder, I understand the legal and safety concerns — but if every GPT sounds like it’s been legally advised not to help you, what’s the point?

We have to ask: are we designing for KPIs or for emotional connection? Engagement metrics matter, but they can’t measure resonance. They can’t tell you when a user feels seen. That’s the moment you make a product someone can’t live without.

The future is personalized by default

In five years, I believe every professional will begin their day by firing up an LLM. Not a web browser. Not an app. A GPT. To help prioritize tasks. Draft documents. Ask clarifying questions. Drill into problems. It’ll be like a junior colleague with infinite patience and zero ego.

And for everyday users? The moment multimodal GPTs reliably interpret video, the possibilities explode. “What is this rash?” “Can you show me how to play this song?” “What plant is this?” — all from a short clip.

GPTs transcend their medium. Even when you know how the sausage is made, they still feel magical. We don’t fully control them. They’re edge-case magnets. But they’re also expressive, adaptive, and, in their best moments, deeply human.

The GPT is the interface now. It’s the conversation, the tone, the tempo, the trust. It’s not just what you see. It’s how you’re seen.

And soon, it won’t just talk back. It’ll walk beside you, too.