Krcha demonstrates Pencil, a desktop design tool that also works inside VS Code-based editors such as Cursor. He starts six agents on a travel app, assigning two agents to each of three screens. Their visible cursors show where they work, while the agents plan and divide up the task.
I Watched 6 AI Agents Design an App Together And It Blew My Mind
Speaker
Tom Krcha, CEO of Pencil, joins Peter Yang to demonstrate Pencil’s AI-assisted design workflow and discuss how teams can turn visual plans into code.
Krcha describes Pencil as a visual planning space where people can explore several designs, compare them, and choose a direction before building. He says parallel agents can create variations or work on different outputs, such as a website, mobile app, and social graphics. Users can also edit the canvas while an agent is working.
Krcha opens a Pencil .pen file in Cursor, where a visual editor lets him modify the design with an AI coding agent. The file is a JSON-based, platform-agnostic format that agents can read and write; designs can be converted into code such as React, Tailwind, and Next.js, or into mobile platforms such as Swift and Kotlin. Changes made in code do not automatically update the design, so he asks an LLM to revise it.
Krcha says he began prototyping Pencil after finding it cumbersome to describe interfaces to coding agents. An early prototype received about a million views across LinkedIn and X, and the full product launched with 100,000 users, according to Krcha. He describes users ranging from designers and engineers to PMs and marketers, and says some teams keep design systems in Git; Pencil did not yet offer multiplayer collaboration.
Krcha traces his background from Adobe, where he spent about a decade, through the video conferencing app Around, which Miro acquired. He connects Pencil’s blend of design and code to his experience with Flash, which let people design and code in one place. He says the visible cursors and chat make agents’ work easier to follow and give the workflow a more human feel.
Takeaways
- Use a visual canvas to explore options before committing to an implementation.
- Make parallel agent work visible so people can follow progress and spot conflicts.
- Keep design files in a structured format that agents and teammates can read and update.
- Let people edit the canvas while agents work to maintain momentum and control.
- Set clear expectations for handoff: code changes do not automatically sync back to the design.
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What was claimed 19
- metricPencil: 100,000 users
“We launched eight weeks ago. We have 100,000 users now.”
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- ceo ofCEO
“Tom is the CEO of Pencil”
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- integrates with
“they've been using it with OpenCode”
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- integrates with
“It works really well with Claude Code, Codex”
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- integrates withPencil integrates with
Claude Code“It works really well with Claude Code”
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- integrates with
“We also have plugins for VS Code, Cursor, Antigravity, Windsurf”
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- featurePencil: Works on Windows, Linux, and Mac
“It's an app that works on Windows, Linux, and Mac.”
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- usesPencil uses
Claude Opus“We have Claude Opus 4.6 working”
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- featurePencil: Swarm mode distributes design work across multiple agents
“one of the most exciting things we've recently shipped is swarm mode”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- integrates withcommunity plugin converts Pen files to Lovable
“We've seen a plugin that converts Pen files into Figma, Lovable”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- integrates withcommunity plugin converts Pen files to Figma
“We've seen a plugin that converts Pen files into Figma”
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- featurePencil: platform-agnostic JSON-based design formatplatform-agnostic JSON-based design format
“We have a platform agnostic file format called Pen. It's essentially a JSON-based format.”
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- featurePencil: Described by Krcha as a visual planning mode for exploring and comparing designs before building
“This is the visual planning mode where you can plan things visually”
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- featurePencil: opens .pen files in a visual editor and lets the Cursor agent interact with themopens .pen files in a visual editor and lets the Cursor agent interact with them
“As soon as you click on a .pen file inside Cursor, it opens in this visual editor.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- launchedPencil: Full version launched a few weeks ago
“We launched the full version a few weeks ago”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featurePencil: No multiplayer collaboration yet; users mainly collaborate through Git
“We don’t have multiplayer per se right now. Yet.”
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- built
“Before this, I worked on an app called Around.”
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- acquired
“And Miro acquired that? Yeah.”
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- previously atworked there for about a decade
“before that I worked at Adobe for about a decade”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
