Today, I'm excited to share that Rey, our AI-powered tool for building mobile apps visually, is launching in open beta.

I’ve always believed that the most powerful tools mirror how humans naturally see and interact with the world. Consider the history of computing: early computers operated on paper tape and punch cards, then evolved to command-line interfaces. Yet what truly democratized computing was the rise of the graphical user interface (GUI) in the 1980s. Instead of typing cryptic commands, we could drop files into folders, drag windows to resize them, and navigate with a simple point and click. The GUI transformed computers into a boundless visual canvas we could shape with our hands.

LLMs introduce yet another way for humans to interact with machines: natural language. For the first time, we can communicate with computers through casual conversation, much like we do with other humans. Conversational AI narrows the gap between thought and creation: just describe what we want in plain language, and watch our ideas come to life.

Yet language alone, while powerful, can feel abstract when building something visual. When you're designing an interface, it's hard to describe exact layouts, spacing, and visual relationships in words, you need to see and directly manipulate them. Conversational AI is brilliant for expressing intent, but lacks the spatial awareness and immediate feedback that visual design provides.

Introducing Rey

Rey is where the precision of visual design meets the intelligence of conversational AI. It's a mobile app builder where you can directly design your app on a visual canvas, describe what you want to an AI copilot, and preview everything instantly on your phone. You might ask the AI copilot to "add a welcome screen for a workout app with an image and a sign-up button," drag the button to reposition it, tweak the spacing, and see the result on your phone in seconds.

When we started building Rey, we knew it would be possible to build a powerful AI-powered visual app engine on the web, but we had no idea how hard this would be. Today, after months of alpha testing and multiple apps built with Rey now live on the app stores with paying customers, we're confident that it's not only possible – it's the future of how apps will be built.

What's next

Starting today, anyone can sign up for Rey and start building. We're just getting started, so right now the only cost is your feedback.

As we're still early, you'll encounter rough edges, features that don't work exactly as expected, and capabilities we're still building out. We're launching now because we believe the best way to build this is alongside the people who will use it. If you're excited about the future of software creation, we'd love to have you build with us.

We can't wait to see what you'll create.