In May I wrote that generative UI ends the page as the destination. I still think generative UI goes there, but five months later it is clearly early. Google and OpenAI now both build answers as interfaces, and neither has shown a website's data inside one. The decision generative UI would force on a business is already visible, though, and it looks a lot like the one hotels made with booking.com.
Generative UI means the AI builds the screen for each answer, with charts, buttons, maps or a small tool, instead of returning a block of text or a list of links.
Google's Generative UI Reached AI Mode Globally In English By August 2026
Google's generative UI was live globally in English in AI Mode, the chat-style tab in Google Search, by 19 August 2026. Google first brought it to AI Mode with Gemini 3 on 18 November 2025, and at I/O on 19 May 2026 promised it to everyone. Google's Search post from I/O says Search "can design custom layouts, assembling components (like interactive visuals, tables, graphs or simulations)", and that these capabilities "will be available for everyone in Search this summer, free of charge."
Google's I/O post says how generative UI is built: "We're bringing the power of Google Antigravity and the agentic coding capabilities of Gemini 3.5 Flash right into Search." Antigravity is Google's tool for AI that writes code. Google's November 2025 post says Gemini codes the interactive tools in real time and adds them into the response.
Google's 19 August post confirmed the rollout: "Generative UI capabilities have launched globally in English in AI Mode" and "have started rolling out as well in AI Overviews," the AI summaries at the top of Google results. The examples in Google's August post are study aids, "custom tools and simulations to help you see complex topics in action."
The I/O example that does use outside information is for a later feature: small apps people will be able to build inside Search "in the coming months." Google's example is a fitness tracker: "Search will code it for you, tapping into fresh, real-time sources including reviews, live maps and local data like the weather". Google's I/O post does not say whose reviews.
HOW AI IS CHANGING THE INTERNET: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE POINTLESS
Nobody asked us if we wanted the internet changed. So every week I send one email about one thing AI did to it, with the receipts, and what to do about it. Sometimes the honest answer is "not yet."
From someone who pays attention to this for a living.
OpenAI Launched Its Own Version, Intelligent UI, In ChatGPT On 7 October 2026
OpenAI launched Intelligent UI with GPT-6 on 7 October. ChatGPT answers can now "include graphics, tappable buttons, forms, charts, and interactive experiences you can use directly in your conversation." OpenAI started rolling it out to most paid ChatGPT plans that day, and to the Free and Go plans the next day.
OpenAI says ChatGPT shows these screens while the answer is still being written. ChatGPT puts its screens together from ready-made parts, while Google says Gemini writes the code for its interactive tools on the spot.
OpenAI's examples are a Sunday roast timed alongside the recipe, a road trip on a map, the central limit theorem, a bill splitter and a retirement calculator. OpenAI's post closes on "Instead of people adapting to software, software will adapt to people." OpenAI's Intelligent UI announcement mentions web search but says nothing about websites, sources or links back.
Neither Google Nor OpenAI Has Shown A Website's Data Inside A Generated Interface
The examples in Google's and OpenAI's announcements are built from what the AI already knows. None of them shows a store's product, a hotel's rooms or a local business's hours inside a generated interface. Google's November 2025 post says "all responses have prominent links to high-quality content across the web," which puts links next to the generated interface and says nothing about a business's own data inside one.
I have not seen it either. I have seen rich results, the search results with extras like star ratings or prices, but I have no idea if that was generative UI.
Whether anyone is using generative UI is also an open question. Google's 3 June post, updated 31 August, puts AI Overviews at "over 2.5 billion monthly active users" and AI Mode past one billion monthly users. OpenAI says more than 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT each week. Those are the audiences of the products, and neither company has said how many people see a generated interface. One ChatGPT Plus user reported on OpenAI's forum that their account showed GPT-6 but no Intelligent UI. That is a single report.
Generative UI Would Keep People Inside Google, ChatGPT And Every Platform That Builds It
Generative UI is something that would keep the user with Google longer, or even all the way. And it is something that others, OpenAI, are now doing. It is not just Google, it is all platforms.
If you know the Backrooms, the internet horror story about endless empty office rooms that A24 turned into a movie in 2026, generative UI is the friendlier version. The rooms are nicer, there is a calculator in every one, and you are still not supposed to leave.
There is a second reason, and this part is my guess. On Alphabet's earnings call on 22 July, Sundar Pichai said Google has started training Gemini 4, its next model. Asked by an analyst how Google would close the gap in coding, he answered: "There are areas where we have acknowledged we need to improve. Coding and agentic coding is an example of that, and I think the teams are very, very focused on it." On 30 September he showed an early version, Gemini 4 Argon, on X, and said it performs at the top level in "software engineering", based on Google's own tests. Google says Gemini codes the tools inside generative UI, so a Gemini that is better at coding builds better tools.
The Decision For A Business Is Whether Google Becomes Its Booking.com
A business facing generative UI has to decide what to do about Google traffic. Wait for the booking or the order to come via Google, a version of what booking.com does, or work on other channels. Or do both.
What a business would pay Google for those bookings, I do not know. My hunch is that there is zero chance Google is not thinking about how to monetise generative UI. It would be a commission, or paid placements, or both. It would basically be the booking.com business model on a search results page.
The paid-placement half already exists. At Google Marketing Live, its yearly advertising event, in 2025, Google said "We're expanding Ads in AI Overviews, and testing Ads in AI Mode," so paid placement inside Google's AI answers was already a product by 2025. A commission on bookings made inside a generated interface is not something Google has announced.
This is me talking about what I think will happen. Nothing Google or OpenAI has shown puts a website inside a generated interface yet. The choice between waiting for Google to send the booking and building the channels a business owns does not need to wait for that.