4 min
Designing the AI interface for the fastest decentralized intelligence platform
O.XYZ is building sovereign superintelligence — fast, open, user-owned AI powered by Cerebras CS-3 wafer-scale engines. OCEAN is its consumer-facing interface. I led the strategic redesign of the interaction model.
1. Problem
OCEAN worked, but didn't match O.XYZ's ambition:
No brand presence in responses — zero visual connection to O.XYZ during the core interaction moment.
Flat, static output — walls of text with no mechanism to explore, iterate, or go deeper.
Missing fundamentals — no send button, no streaming indicator, no new chat shortcut.
The "10x faster" claim had zero visual reinforcement. Users couldn't feel the speed.
2. Users
Ocean serves two distinct profiles:
Crypto-native early adopters — they understand decentralized infrastructure, expect power-user features, and benchmark Ocean against every AI tool they already use.
Mainstream users migrating from ChatGPT/Perplexity — they expect polish, speed, and familiar interaction patterns. They don't care about the infra — they care about the output.
The interface needed to satisfy both without alienating either — accessible enough for newcomers, deep enough for power users.
3. Benchmark
Studied Grok and Perplexity as primary references:
Grok turns output into a springboard — recommended actions below every response, feature modes exposed upfront.
Perplexity treats prompts as page titles and surfaces sources as hyperlink previews. Credible, but passive — the user reads truth rather than shaping it.
Ocean's direction: outputs that the user can actively browse, not just consume.
4. Analysis
Audited the current state with annotated screenshots and sticky-note mapping:
Missing O.XYZ logo in responses — no brand recall.
No send button — accessibility and onboarding gap.
No streaming animation — despite being 2x faster, nothing communicated it.
No way to interact with output — users who wanted depth had to re-prompt manually, losing context.
Every finding was mapped to a usability heuristic and prioritized by engagement impact.
5. Approach
Design at this level is not about inventing the wheel — it's about refining every bolt that holds it.
Built a value/effort prioritization matrix across four quadrants:
Do It Now — send button, new chat, logo in answers, streaming, TTS, highlight key output. Low effort, high value.
Do It Later — file input, image I/O, display maps. High effort, clear dependencies.
Do It If Possible — prompt as page title, AI reasoning history, temperature slider.
Don't Do It — personal DB connectivity, context-specific agents. Too heavy for v1.
6. Prototype
Started on paper. The core mechanic:
User selects any fragment of a response.
Key phrases are extracted and surfaced as interactive chips.
One click to expand, simplify, or challenge just that passage.
Moved to hi-fi with Ocean's 3D ring as the hero background:
The interaction felt natural — deeper exploration without leaving the conversation thread.
7. Solution
Version One — initial surface touched. A fraction of what this interaction model could become.
Selection-based output iteration — the core innovation. Highlight text, get scoped follow-ups. Turns passive reading into active research.
Plus:
Voice SFX and state transitions reinforcing responsiveness.
Micro-interactions — streaming indicators, hover states, send confirmations.
Interactive 3D background — Ocean's signature ring reacting to user input.
One-click prompt suggestions below responses.
Sources preview inline with thumbnails + dedicated sources tab.
8. Results
Shifted Ocean from a generic chat interface to a differentiated AI product. Introduced a novel interaction pattern absent from every major competitor. Delivered a prioritization roadmap spanning quick wins through platform-level features.
The interface now communicates what O.XYZ claims: faster, open, user-owned.
Marketing Release
On the big picture to promote the new product I've conducted with marketing a series of small drop release; the first being this 3D WebGL Component made to trigger excitement, at this level simplicity as core of design language must be kept as we thrive against highly creative and performative competitors for the most avid user. Showing glitch ascii effects on hover together with iris glassmorphic distortion.
Ocean was part of Captain, a bigger product focused on B2B team management system that was being designed and built in paralel that would use the tecnology from Ocean (decentralized ai) to hold its ground infra.
