Writing complex UI and maintaining it can be hard. Writing tests help, but writing tests is also hard. Storybook can help with both, and provide auto documentation for your components.

Thanks to AI, designers and PMs are now prototyping and deploying faster than ever, sometimes without writing a single line of code. Tools like Lovable, Bolt and others can generate entire applications directly from prompts, while design tools are blurring the lines between mockups and implementation. So where does that leave React engineers?

As AI tools become UI builders, one trend is clear: React is becoming their default output. It's quickly turning into the universal framework of AI, putting React developers at risk of seeing their core skills commoditized.

In a world where AI can generate impressive UIs and ship entire components from a single prompt, it's tempting to declare the death of frontend engineering.

But what if we're just looking at it wrong?

The pixel-pushing days may be over, but the complexity is just shifting layers. Welcome to the age of the back of the frontend. This talk explores how AI is fragmenting the frontend into fast, flashy outputs and deeply nuanced logic, and why the real value now lies beneath the surface.

We'll break down what's actually being automated (spoiler: it's not the hard stuff), the logic, flows, edge cases, performance, that's still on us. We'll examine where human acuity still matters, why knowing when not to use AI might be your new superpower, and how the integration of AI-generated React components into complex, multi-framework applications creates new engineering challenges.

This talk doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable question: what is your job when everyone can "build"?

If you're a frontend dev wondering whether you still have a job, you do. But it may not look the same as the one you trained for. The new frontier isn't just building components, but designing the systems that allow AI-generated components to function in the beautiful complexity of production applications.

WebStorm IDE is researching developer experience flow state. We found that developers feel it is not productive alt-tabbing between IDE/ AI Agents, Figma and browsers trying to spot if everything matches. It’s a manual process that doesn’t scale when we are getting faster with AI. It's too late if these visual bugs hit a PR review, you've already lost the context needed to fix them without taxing your head space.

Is it possible or even desired to pull this validation directly into the development loop?
We'd like to show you our prototype on how we would like to combine the Figma Plugin APIs, WebStorm and Vitest Browser Mode to automate these checks while you code.

Designers and developers work on different timelines—designers look to the future while developers build from what’s already been designed. They speak different languages and follow different processes. How can we bridge these gaps and build a more collaborative development process? In this talk, we will explore the integration of modern techniques and AI-driven tools to enhance design systems, fostering improved communication between cross-functional teams. By leveraging artificial intelligence, we can not only boost productivity and innovation but also create a more harmonious and efficient workflow for both designers and developers