In three parts I’ll make the case that in Q1 of this year, the AI race has become basically a land grab for design and development tasks. MLB fully embraces our new prediction market overlords. Even if they’re behind in AI Apple is still making big money from AI. And Uber is still placing bets in the self-driving race. Google introduces &#x27;vibe design&#x27; with Stitch (The Deep View) OpenAI to Acquire Startup Astral, Expanding Push Into Coding (Bloomberg) Crypto.com cuts around 12% of staff as CEO pushes enterprise-wide AI integration (The Block) Major League Baseball Steps Into the Prediction Markets, Strikes Deal With Polymarket (WSJ) Apple Is Way Behind in AI—and Still Making a Fortune From It (WSJ) Uber to invest $1.25 billion in Rivian as part of new robotaxi deal (The Verge) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The AI Race Is Now A Land Grab For Dev And Design Work

Tech Brew Ride Home

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**Podcast:** Tech Brew Ride Home

## Transcript

Welcome to the Tech Brew Ride Home for Thursday, March 19, 2026. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, in three parts, I'll make the case that Q1 of this year, the AI Race has basically become a land grab for design and development tasks. Major League Baseball fully embraces our new prediction market overlords. Even if they're behind in AI, Apple is still making big money from AI, and Uber is still placing bets in the self-driving race. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech.

Everybody is moving fast to land grab on the AI developer and even the designer space. Here's example number one. Google has updated Stitch to let users turn natural language prompts into UI designs introducing an AI-native software design canvas and a reasoning design agent. Quoting the DeepView,

If you can use natural language prompts to build complex websites and apps, doing the same for design should be no different, and that's exactly what Google Stitch sets out to do. The redesign tool launched in beta on Tuesday lets users of all experience levels collaborate with AI to create and iterate on software designs. The Stitch tool is intended to let users of the UI's UI designs. The Stitch tool is intended to let users skip the initial tedious steps of creating wireframes or rough outlines that map out the layout and jump straight into building websites and apps with UIs focused on users' goals and inspirations.

While Stitch can do a lot for users of all experience levels, the DeepFuse designer, Lucas Crespo, does not think it is a tool that sets out to replace designers, but rather helps them to get things done sooner.

To me, it feels closer to downloading a Figma UI kit or starting from a hyper-custom template, says Crespo. Very useful when you are in a rush, very useful for a first draft, but not a substitute for knowing what to do with it if you have a high bar as a designer and want to do differentiated stuff.

With the platform, users can also integrate their own images, text, or code into the project. Then they can stitch screens together and click play to view the app workflow, and the platform can even generate the next logical screen so users can see the entire journey mapped out. Lastly, through the Stitch MCP server and SDK, Stitch can also be implemented into other tools and skills. Stitch is available to all users for free via Google Labs.

It is an intuitive process that I tried for myself as someone with barely any background in website or app design, and I had a lot of fun." Just noting this on top of that, Figma's stock closed down 7.98% on March 18th after this was announced. Figma is down around 80% since the company's IPO in August of 2025. I think they got out the door just in time before the buzzsaw of Vibe AI headed their way.

Example number two. OpenAI has agreed to acquire Astral, which makes Python tools for developers. Quoting Bloomberg, The deal, which hasn't yet closed, ...

The AI Race Is Now A Land Grab For Dev And Design Work

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The AI Race Is Now A Land Grab For Dev And Design Work

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.