Designing Interfaces for AI Applications

When people first hear about AI models, they often imagine one product with one screen. In practice, AI models can be reached through several different kinds of interfaces. An interface is the place where a person meets the AI: the window, panel, or app they type into and read from. This article introduces the three main interface types, so that you can recognize them and understand how each one places the AI within everyday work.

The central question is simple. If the AI model is the same kind of thing, what changes when you access it through a standalone app, a browser extension, or a chatbot inside a chat app? The answer depends on where the interface sits and what kind of moment in your day it is built to serve. Keep that question in mind as you read.

A good way to understand the three routes is to start with a user need and follow it. Each interface fits a different kind of need, and the need itself usually points toward the right one. Take the same AI model and ask what happens as the situation changes.

Follow the path for the report. The first decision asks whether the task is an extended, deliberate piece of work. For the report, the answer is yes, so the path ends at the standalone application. Change one fact and the path changes. If the user only wanted a quick answer in the middle of reading a web page, the first answer would be no, and the second decision would lead to the browser extension. The chat route only becomes the best fit when the question belongs inside a conversation that is already happening in a chat platform.

Each of the three interface types places the AI in a different location relative to your work. The subsections below describe where each one lives and how a user typically reaches it. The descriptions stay within what the course material states.

The three routes can look like three different AI products, but the interface and the model are separate things. The interface is the place where a person meets the AI, such as the window, panel, or app they type into and read from. The AI model sits behind that interface. Because the interface is a layer in front of the model, the same model can be reached through a standalone application, a browser extension, and a chat-app chatbot.

The diagram shows this layering. The user meets one of three interface layers, and each of those layers reaches the same AI model. What changes from one route to another is the interface layer and the moment in the user's day that it serves, not the model itself.

The three interface types can be compared by the place where each one lives and the situation it is described as supporting. The table uses only the descriptions given in the course material, so each cell stays within what is stated.

Read the table as a map of relationships rather than a ranking. None of the three routes is inherently better. Each connects the AI to a different starting point: an app you visit, a page you are already reading, or a conversation you are already having.