Podcast Summary: Behind the Craft

Episode: I Watched 6 AI Agents Design an App In Real Time And It Blew My Mind | Tom Krcha

Host: Peter Yang
Guest: Tom Krcha (CEO, Pencil)
Date: March 8, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores the revolutionary new AI-powered design tool, Pencil, with its CEO and creator Tom Krcha. Host Peter Yang experiences a live demo of Pencil's Swarm feature, which allows multiple AI agents to collaborate visually in real time to design apps and websites. The conversation dives into the humanizing aspect of visual agent cursors, design system integrations, the agentic "pen" file format, and the vast implications for product creators, designers, and even non-technical users. Tom shares his product philosophy, startup journey, and vision for a more accessible and collaborative approach to building digital products with AI.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Humanizing AI Design Through Visual Cursors

• The Cursors as a Breakthrough:
  • The episode opens with Peter and Tom marveling at AI cursors working on the screen at once—a simple yet profound UI innovation that makes AI feel collaborative and "humanized."
  • [00:00] Tom: “Those cursors, it seems like a small touch, but it's the first time I have seen AI humanized. It feels like there's someone there. It's crazy. It's just a cursor, but it's like so much more we can do.”

2. Live Demo – Swarm of AI Agents Designing an App

• Pencil in Action:

  • Tom walks through launching Pencil, compatible with major platforms and code editors (Windows, Mac, Linux, VS Code, Cursor, etc.), showing off its plugin ecosystem and ability to use multiple AI agents.
  • Peter requests a mobile app for a travel log, and Tom sets up six AI agents to collaboratively design three screens.
  • [04:33] Tom: “We had this whole parallelism kind of built... But I have no idea which agent is working on what... I was like, why don't we just put a cursor there so we can see who is working on what... Oh my gosh, like, this is magic. It feels. It's so humanized... it really feels like there's actually someone behind it, making these changes.”

• Parallel Workflow and Names:

  • Users will soon be able to name agents and customize their personalities—a feature in high demand from users.
  • [04:12] Tom: “A lot of people ask, like, can we like customize the names of these agents?... So now I'm working on this feature where you will be able to name them.”

3. Platform Agnostic Design: The Agentic "Pen" File Format

• How Pencil Designs and Exports:
  • Pencil doesn't create static code directly; it generates a descriptor file ("pen")—a JSON format purpose-built for AI agent workflows, designed to be converted to any target platform as needed (Swift, React Native, Kotlin, etc.).
  • [05:41] Tom: “We have this platform agnostic file format, we call it pen... We wanted to really build this format to be agentic from the ground up... you can build plugins around it. People have started building all sorts of different converters.”

4. Visual Planning and Divergent Design Exploration

• Embracing Multiple Solutions:

  • Pencil enables divergent thinking—exploring many variations at once before committing—which mirrors real design processes, unlike linear code-first bytecoding platforms.
  • [10:09] Peter: “Any real designer is not just going to design one thing. They want to diverge and explore a whole bunch of different options and then converge into what they actually want... ideally, I can actually look at the design side by side and just pick one.”

• Bridging the Gap Between Designers, PMs, and Engineers:

  • Pencil is used by a diverse group—designers, engineers, PMs, and even marketers—democratizing access to digital creation.
  • [23:21] Tom: “We're essentially all becoming makers, Designers graduating into design engineers. Engineers now wanting to tackle more things than just code... And now PMs are feeling so empowered to be able to create... it goes way beyond that.”

5. Real-Time Editing, Collaboration, and Source of Truth

• Fluid Workflow and Integration:

  • Users can make edits during generation, use various ready-made components and design systems, and prepare prompts for teams—all within Pencil’s canvas.
  • The pen file can be shared via git, becoming the shared "source of truth."
  • [16:36] Tom: “...this is like agentic, new agentic format or design format built for agents from the ground up... this file goes into git... anybody can work with that file.”

• Not Yet Full Multiplayer:

  • Collaboration is primarily handled via git for now; real-time multiplayer is on the roadmap.
  • [26:01] Tom: “We don't have multiplayer per se right now... people mostly collaborate is through git...”

6. The Fun and Frustration-Free Experience

• Lowering Barriers, Sparking Creativity:

  • Pencil short-circuits the tedium and intimidation of traditional code-first tools—more projects move from "drawer to reality."

  • [25:11] Tom: “So how many people told me, like, man, like, I had like five projects in a drawer, I didn't get to them. And now I'm finally like, thanks to pencil, like, seeing them through. Because it's so much fun to just like, see what it could look like.”

    • [25:47] Peter (about Pencil): “Yours is one of the first that actually is visual first, and I think that makes a lot of difference.”

7. Design Evolution and Vision

• Tom’s Background and Product Journey:

  • Tom shares his history at Adobe, his long-time passion for bridging designing and coding, and Pencil’s genesis from a personal desire to simply draw UI and have AI “just build it.”
  • Pencil launched its GA version 8 weeks ago; now has 100,000 users.
  • [21:56] Tom: “We started early last year... put together a prototype, put it out. It got like 1 million views... Seems like people have a similar problem…”

• The Next Era of Agentic Tools:

  • Tom believes we’re entering a new “Flash for the AI age”—tools that blend design and code and empower all users.
  • [27:09] Tom: “Ever since Flash we haven't necessarily seen a similar paradigm where you would be like, designing coding in one place. And I think now with vitecoding, it started to happen again...”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the magic of seeing AI agents work visually:

  • “...those cursors, it seems like a small touch, but it's the first time I have seen AI humanized...It's so much more we can do.”
    — Tom, [00:00]

• On the importance of craft in AI products:

  • “It shows you actually that craft and care still matter. I would not be as blown away if those cursors were not on the screen and there wasn't, like, an agent chat right below.”
    — Peter, [00:32]/[30:31]

• On Pencil’s pen file philosophy:

  • “Think of this as like, Agentic PDF or like, if PDF was designed or built, you know, in this new era of AI agents, this is probably how it would look like.”
    — Tom, [21:30]

• On agent personalities:

  • “So many people ask me, like, can I rename these agents?... Have a Peter PM agent that just ruins the design.”
    — Tom & Peter, [31:23-31:34]

• On creativity and product building access:

  • “We’re all becoming makers.”
    — Tom, [23:21]

Important Timestamps

• [00:00 - 04:00] — Introduction, first reactions to Pencil’s UI and visual agent cursors
• [04:00 - 06:30] — Demo: AI agents’ workflow, naming, and parallelism
• [10:00 - 13:00] — Discussion on design exploration, visual planning, and workflow differences from "bytecoding" tools
• [14:00 - 16:30] — Real time editing, code export workflow, pen file structure
• [21:30 - 23:00] — Vision behind the pen file and agentic file formats
• [23:00 - 26:00] — Who is using Pencil; surprises in user base
• [26:00 - 29:00] — Tom’s entrepreneurial journey, design philosophy
• [29:45 - 31:30] — The future of agent-human interaction, agent personalities
• [31:46 - End] — Closing sentiments, community invitation, and Tom’s vision for the future

Closing Thoughts

The episode is a compelling glimpse into the future of product creation—where AI agents aren’t just code generators but collaborative teammates, blurring the line between designer, engineer, and PM. Pencil, with its visual-first, agentic, and playful approach, signals a shift toward more accessible, creative, and joyful tech making. Tom’s philosophy and the team's attention to humane detail offer inspiration for anyone building AI-powered creation tools.

Further Info

• Try Pencil or join the community: pencil.dev
• Tom’s socials: Reach via Discord or X for feedback and community discussion