Earlier this April, we had the opportunity to host a live Ask Me Anything session with Bubble co-founders Josh Haas and Emmanuel Straschnov, moderated by Ally Cody, a senior software engineer on our AI team. The session focused on Bubble’s AI vision and the future of AI-powered visual development on our platform.
With AI reshaping the development landscape, Josh and Emmanuel shared insights into how Bubble is evolving into a full-bodied AI-powered visual development platform built for real businesses, while still remaining true to our core mission of making technology accessible to everyone.
For those who couldn’t join us live (or if you want to revisit the conversation), the replay is embedded here. We’ve also compiled the key highlights and announcements from the session below.
Bubble’s AI vision
Josh kicked off the session by summarizing our AI vision in a nutshell: “It’s about helping people build faster and with more control to get to real businesses.”
Emmanuel expanded on this, explaining that Bubble’s approach to AI is divided into three main stages:
- Generate: Creating applications with AI
- Iterate: Building on and improving applications with AI chat and other in-product features
- Scale: Growing applications reliably with the support of AI building tools
What sets Bubble apart in the AI development landscape is our unique combination of visual development with AI assistance. As Emmanuel put it, “The mesh can be pretty magical because the AI that we’re building is going to be interpreting the different patterns in your application, can understand the intent of what your application does.”
Josh emphasized how deeply aligned AI is with Bubble’s founding mission: “We’ve been about helping people and computers communicate for a very long time. And AI is just an advancement on that front because it takes the sort of fuzzy nature of human communication and allows it to get precise.”
This vision is already resonating with our community. Since launching our app generation feature in February, about 22,000 people have generated applications, and interest continues to grow.
Latest AI features and updates
Beyond discussing the vision, we also shared some exciting updates:
- Improved branding in generated apps: As of the morning of the AMA, we’ve significantly enhanced the visual output of generated applications thanks to more cohesive branding.
- Text-based API streaming coming soon: One of our most requested features, the ability to display AI responses on a word-by-word basis (similar to ChatGPT), has been built and tested. It’ll be available to everyone by the end of April 2025.
- Mobile AI generation: While we’re currently focused on web app generation, mobile app generation is on our roadmap for later this year, after our mobile builder launches to everyone in June.
Your questions answered
Throughout the session, Josh and Emmanuel addressed questions from the community. Here are some of the key topics:
Data privacy and training
Many users were concerned about how Bubble uses their data. Josh clarified: “We have not been training Bubble AI on user applications. We do allow Bubble AI to learn from the outputs of our own AI features.”
Emmanuel emphasized that “Bubble apps are the intellectual property of the creator of the applications. And that’s pretty important to us.”
Mobile development and AI
When asked if AI is taking priority over mobile development, Emmanuel was clear: “The short answer is no. We’re really pushing these two initiatives at the same time.”
Josh added that the combination of mobile development and AI will be “game-changing,” allowing users to “super rapidly build a mobile app with the AI features.”
Beyond app generation
What’s next for Bubble AI? Josh explained that we want “AI integrated with the entire app development process,” where “AI and you are partners.”
Emmanuel elaborated: “One of our core principles is that we don’t want the AI to change things silently. The AI’s job will not be to make the changes without telling you, but explain to you, ‘Hey, these are the changes that we think you should make. Do you agree with them?’”
Learning curve and user experience
On how AI will affect the Bubble learning curve, Josh shared: “The point of AI is to create things that are super intuitive for users. When we look at the numbers, we’ve actually seen that users are doing better with an AI assist. So, we’re pretty excited about how AI is bringing down the Bubble learning curve.”
Josh also reminded folks, “We think one of the big advantages of Bubble AI [in terms of maintaining control over AI’s suggestions] is that we’ll give you a lot of control and be really precise about what the AI is doing.”
Emmanuel added that this approach not only makes applications safer, but “it’s going to teach users how to use Bubble better. It’s going to make the learning curve more fun and interactive.”
Pricing and limits
Many users were curious about how AI features will be priced. Emmanuel confirmed that Bubble isn’t planning to use AI features as independent revenue drivers: “We started the company with a vision that building should be free. Pricing becomes a factor when you launch applications to the world and start having real traffic.”
While there may be some usage limits to prevent unreasonable consumption, the team is optimistic about keeping costs down as AI model prices continue to decrease industry-wide.
Bubble vs. code-focused AI tools
When asked how Bubble will stay relevant compared to code-generation platforms, Josh explained: “What we spit out can be understood by everyone, not just professional programmers.” He added, “I think the real challenge is how are [code-focused AI platforms] going to stay relevant when someone non-technical builds a complex app, launches it, and then has to iterate on it with an AI that isn’t perfect, that makes mistakes, when they don’t understand the code that’s generated.”
Emmanuel reinforced this point: “The fundamental reason why we started the company 13 years ago is that writing code and reading code is not easy. AI is not changing that much. That’s why I think AI is so much mission-aligned with what we do.”
Exciting announcement: Bubble AI Build Challenge
To close the session, Josh and Emmanuel announced the Bubble AI Build Challenge — our first competition with cash prizes!
How to participate:
- Create an app with our AI generator at bubble.io/ai-features
- Iterate and improve on the initial generation
- Post a video of your app on X or LinkedIn, tagging Bubble and using #BubbleAI
The most-liked demos on each platform will receive a $5,000 prize, and the Bubble team will select a third “Bubble’s Choice” winner for another $5,000 prize.
Important dates:
- Submission deadline: April 22, 2025
- Winners announced: April 28, 2025
What’s next?
As we continue to develop our AI capabilities, we’re focused on releasing features that enhance the entire app development process — from generation to iteration to scaling.
Our AI vision hinges on building in public and inviting participation from our community. We’re excited to see what you’ll create with these new tools, and we encourage you to try our app generation feature if you haven’t already.
Stay tuned for more updates, and don’t forget to participate in the Bubble AI Build Challenge!
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