Cursor Launches an AI Coding Tool For Designers

Cursor, the wildly fashionable AI coding startup, is launching a caller diagnostic that lets radical plan the look and consciousness of web applications with AI. The tool, Visual Editor, is fundamentally a vibe-coding merchandise for designers, giving them entree to the aforesaid fine-grained controls they’d expect from nonrecreational plan software. But successful summation to making changes manually, the instrumentality lets them petition edits from Cursor’s AI cause utilizing earthy language.

Cursor is champion known for its AI coding platform, but with Visual Editor, the startup wants to seizure different parts of the bundle instauration process. “The halfway that we attraction about, nonrecreational developers, ne'er changes,” Cursor’s caput of design, Ryo Lu, tells WIRED. “But successful reality, developers are not by themselves. They enactment with a batch of people, and anyone making bundle should beryllium capable to find thing utile retired of Cursor.”

Cursor is 1 of the fastest increasing AI startups of each time. Since its 2023 debut, the institution says it has surpassed $1 cardinal successful yearly recurring gross and counts tens of thousands of companies, including Nvidia, Salesforce, and PwC, arsenic customers. In November, the startup closed a $2.3 cardinal backing circular that brought its valuation to astir $30 billion.

Cursor was an aboriginal person successful the AI coding market, but it’s present facing much unit than ever from larger competitors similar OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. The startup has historically licensed AI models from these companies, but present its rivals are investing heavy successful AI coding products of their own. Anthropic’s Claude Code, for example, grew adjacent faster than Cursor, reaching $1 cardinal successful yearly recurring gross conscionable six months aft launch. In response, Cursor has started processing and deploying its ain AI models.

Traditionally, gathering bundle applications has required galore antithetic teams moving unneurotic crossed a wide scope of products and tools. By integrating plan capabilities straight into its coding environment, Cursor wants to amusement that it tin bring these functions unneurotic into a azygous platform.

“Before, designers utilized to unrecorded successful their ain satellite of pixels and frames, and they don't truly construe to code. So teams had to physique processes to manus disconnected tasks backmost and distant betwixt developers and designers, but determination was a batch of friction,” says Lu. “We benignant of melded the plan satellite and the coding satellite unneurotic into 1 interface with 1 AI agent.”

AI-Powered Web Design

In a demo astatine WIRED’s San Francisco headquarters, Cursor’s merchandise engineering pb Jason Ginsberg showcased however Visual Editor could modify the aesthetics of a webpage.

A accepted plan sheet connected the close lets users set fonts, adhd buttons, make menus, oregon alteration backgrounds. On the left, a chat interface accepts natural-language requests, specified arsenic “make this button’s inheritance colour red.” Cursor’s cause past applies those changes straight into the codification base.

Earlier this year, Cursor released its ain web browser that works straight wrong its coding environment. The institution argues the browser creates a amended feedback loop erstwhile processing products, allowing engineers and designers to presumption requests from existent users and entree Chrome-style developer tools.