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How To Design In The Agent Era

2026-08-07 · 14:00 UTC ·Y Combinator ·1 min read

Brief

Design Review (presentation/demo) features Stephen Haney and Aaron Epstein demonstrating Paper’s agent-first workflow for fast, AI-driven design. Through live redesigns of user sites, they show shaders, image generation, and a design-to-code agent stack that produce polished iterations in seconds, teach how to spot and fix AI design tells, and warn founders against shipping generic-looking products.

Why it matters

Paper is an agent-native, AI-first design tool demoed by founder Stephen Haney with YC GP Aaron Epstein on 2026-08-07; showcased features include shaders, image generation, brand design (demo at 05:11) and a design-to-code agent stack (11:32), enabling rapid redesigns of user-submitted sites.

Key details

  • They performed live redesigns — Legion Health (16:48), Sytex (28:26), Moreta (37:39) — and demonstrated how to identify common AI-generated "design slop" tells and fix them in seconds, arguing the biggest risk for founders is shipping designs that look like everyone else.
  • Paper uses internal agents and community-building as core tactics; presenters framed Paper as "one of the fastest-growing design tools since Figma," and discussed lessons from Haney's first startup and next steps for the product (segments at 41:11, 46:52, 53:30).
Source evidence

AI isn't just changing the tools designers use. It's changing how they build, ship, and stand out. In this episode of Design Review, Stephen Haney, founder of AI-native design tool Paper, joins YC General Partner Aaron Epstein to demo the agent-first workflow that's making Paper one of the fastest-growing design tools since Figma. Using live redesigns of user-submitted websites as examples, they break down the most common AI design tells, show how to fix them in seconds, and explain why the biggest risk for founders isn't moving too slow, it's shipping something that looks like everyone else.

Chapters:
00:00 - Great companies have great design
01:04 - What is Paper and why build it?
03:17 - What makes Paper agent-native
05:11 - Demo: Shaders, image generation, and brand design
11:32 - Design-to-code and the new agent stack
16:48 - Design Review: Legion Health
24:11 - How to avoid AI design slop
28:26 - Design Review: Sytex
32:42 - The biggest tells of AI-generated design
37:39 - Design Review: Moreta
41:11 - Can AI learn taste?
43:56 - How Paper uses agents internally
46:52 - Building a community around Paper
49:15 - Lessons from Steven’s first startup
53:30 - What’s next for design and Paper

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Channel: Y Combinator
Published: 2026-08-07
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P06RgnUKX_I