Gemini generative UI (dynamic view, visual layout, AI Mode)
Gemini answers a prompt with a custom interactive HTML page built per question, in the Gemini app and Search AI Mode.
Gemini generative UI (dynamic view, visual layout, AI Mode)
- Maker: Google (Google Research: Yaniv Leviathan, Dani Valevski, Vishnu Natchu, Yossi Matias)
- URL: https://research.google/blog/generative-ui-a-rich-custom-visual-interactive-user-experience-for-any-prompt/
- Status (10 October 2026): shipping in stages, closed. Announced 18 November 2025 with Gemini 3: two experiments in the Gemini app (dynamic view, visual layout) and generative layouts in AI Mode in Search for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the US. Canvas came to AI Mode for everyone in the US in March 2026. At I/O (May 2026) Google said Search would build custom layouts with interactive visuals, tables, graphs and simulations using Gemini 3.5 Flash and Antigravity, free to everyone “this summer”, and that persistent trackers, dashboards and “mini apps” would follow “in the coming months”, starting with US subscribers. We couldn’t confirm whether the mini apps have shipped. The research paper’s evaluation dataset (PAGEN) was promised for release; we didn’t find it.
What it is
The model answers a prompt with a custom interactive page instead of text: HTML, CSS and JavaScript generated per prompt, with tools for images and search. A question about fractals gets an explorable fractal; a trip question gets a planner. Gemini’s Canvas is the separate, explicit “build me an app/page” workspace.
The problem it’s solving
Text answers are a poor fit for many questions, especially ones about how something works. Google’s framing is that the model should design the experience, not just the content, per question.
Its path / bet
Fully generated, per-prompt, disposable HTML at consumer scale, inside the search box. Of everyone in this cluster, Google is the furthest along the “UI is as cheap as a paragraph” line. The I/O 2026 move to persistent dashboards and mini apps is the same lab discovering that some generated UIs should be kept.
How it works
Per the research post: Gemini 3 Pro with (1) tool access (image generation, web search), whose results can go to the model or straight to the browser; (2) long system instructions covering planning, examples, technical specs and common errors; (3) post-processors that fix common mistakes in the output. The output is HTML/CSS/JS. Product surfaces can impose a visual style. In their evaluation, human raters strongly preferred these pages over the top search result, raw text and Markdown, and only expert-made websites scored higher, with generation speed explicitly not counted. The post concedes generation “can sometimes take a minute or more” and outputs “occasionally contain inaccuracies”.
Strengths
- The most direct evidence anyone has published that people prefer generated interactive pages to text answers (with the speed caveat).
- Explicitly about understanding: explainers, simulations, interactive visuals. This is the “revolution in teaching” thread in its most mainstream form.
- Tool results can go straight to the browser, bypassing the model: the same principle as fictty’s data sources.
- Distribution: Search and the Gemini app.
Weaknesses / limits
- Latency: up to a minute per page, by Google’s own account; preference numbers ignore it.
- No agent loop: the page is an answer, not a screen an agent keeps working on, patches or reads back.
- Consumer surfaces only; no developer API for “render this generated UI in my product” that we found (A2UI is Google’s separate, data-first answer for that).
- Accuracy and consistency depend on the model; post-processors patch the most common failures.
Relation to fictty
Inspire. Different surface, different user. Two things matter for fictty. First, it is the strongest evidence for the learning thesis: generated interactive UI helps people understand. Second, Google itself runs two bets: free-form HTML for consumer answers (this) and declarative data for developers (A2UI). That split suggests the HTML/data question is decided by who owns the renderer, not by which is better in the abstract.
Could fictty adopt it instead of building?
No. It isn’t available as a component or API.
What fictty should take from it
- The post-processor idea. Google fixes common model mistakes after generation. fictty can do the same, more reliably, because its input is data: validate and repair a pushed UI value (unknown fields, missing ids, bad bindings) with a precise error, and record what it fixed.
- Tool results straight to the view. Same principle as fictty’s sources; cite it.
- Explainers as a first-class use case. Build an “explain this system” recipe (concept explainer, interactive diagram, stepper) and measure it, rather than leaving learning as rhetoric.
- Measure time-to-first-useful-frame, the number Google left out. A fictty screen should be useful in a second or two because the agent writes a small value, not a page.
Sources
- Google Research, Generative UI: a rich, custom, visual interactive user experience for any prompt (18 November 2025)
- Google, Search’s I/O 2026 updates and 100 things we announced at I/O 2026
- Google, Canvas in AI Mode
- Google Workspace Updates, More ways to create with Canvas in Gemini (May 2025)
- Generative UI glossary (secondary; used only for naming confusion)
Not verified: current status of dynamic view and visual layout in the Gemini app (still experiments or generally available), and whether mini apps have shipped.