“This is like Figma with root access.”
This issue of Redeployed is brought to you by Tecla: The line between design and code is disappearing. Tools like Cursor now let anyone speak UI changes into existence. but someone still has to own the front-end. Tecla helps you hire Webflow developers who operate in that hybrid zone, fluent in visual systems, real CSS, and AI-assisted workflows. They’re the ones who make sure prompt-driven design turns into production-ready code, not chaos.
Another frontier just got crossed.
Cursor, the AI coding startup that has been building serious developer momentum this year, just announced a feature called Visual Editor. It lets you modify the actual UI of a live web app by describing what you want in natural language. You can say things like “Make this button larger,” or “Align this form to the left,” and Cursor will update the underlying CSS in real time. Not mockups. Not design previews. Real code, live edits, committed changes.
Think Figma, but instead of handing off to a developer, it commits the fix for you.
The launch didn’t make a huge splash outside developer circles. But it should have. Because this is not just another AI code tool. This is a signal that the boundary between design and implementation is not just blurry, it is disappearing.
And that boundary was important.
For years, the design-to-dev workflow created friction, but it also created structure. Designers worked in Figma or Sketch. Devs implemented. Everyone knew their lane. Even Webflow, for all its no-code ambition, still lived mostly on the marketing side of the stack.
Cursor’s Visual Editor is different. It invites designers directly into the code layer. It lets them experiment with layout and styling without ever opening a terminal. And for developers? It creates an environment where design tweaks are proposed, previewed, and applied, without needing to push back on every margin change.
That sounds great, in theory.
But in practice, this introduces a new kind of complexity.
Who owns the front-end now? Who reviews the changes when they’re proposed by a designer speaking English, translated by an LLM, and rendered directly in code? Who keeps the style guide consistent? Who checks for accessibility regressions? Who owns the git history?
This is not a technology problem. It is an ownership problem.
Some teams are already adjusting. They’re pairing AI tooling like Cursor with engineers who can operate in this new hybrid zone. Developers who understand front-end architecture, but also think in visual systems. People who can review CSS changes from an AI prompt, ensure design consistency, and ship production-ready UI without blocking the creative flow. It’s not about replacing the designer. It’s about reinforcing the output. Here’s how those teams are scaling without adding complexity.
We are entering a phase where AI tools are not just augmenting individual roles, they are connecting them. The designer is now one prompt away from being a contributor. The front-end developer is now a reviewer of AI-initiated commits. The PM might be next.
What Cursor is building is powerful. But the impact goes beyond shipping buttons faster. It reshapes the team dynamic. It redefines what a “change request” even looks like. And for engineering leaders, it demands new thinking around permissions, workflows, and source of truth.
This is not Figma for devs. It is git for everyone.
And it is just getting started.
More to come…
Recommended Reads
✔️ Onlook: Visual Editing Meets Live Code — It’sFoss
✔️ Mixed Reactions to Cursor’s Visual Designer — DevClass
And if you’re reading this over the holidays, consider it a quiet note from the future.
Modernization just got a lot easier, assuming you’ve still got the humans who remember why that legacy code exists at all.
Wishing you a peaceful holiday season, and thanks for being part of this journey.
– Gino Ferrand, Founder @ Tecla