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An interactive answer is a part of the agent’s reply drawn as live UI: a table, a chart, sliders you drag, a map, a quiz. The rest of the reply stays ordinary text, and the UI builds as the agent writes. To put a chart or a form in your own app instead, ask the agent to build it and open it in the Preview. For a slide deck, see Slides, drawings and diagrams. Alpha will:
  1. Answer with the balance at your numbers, in a sentence.
  2. Draw sliders for the deposit, the rate and the years, beside the balance and a chart.
  3. Recompute every figure in your browser as you move a slider. No new turn starts, so it costs nothing.

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Show me, or build me?

A question about information is answered in the chat, even when the whole answer is charts. Something for your app is code in your project, and nothing is drawn. “How does HTTPS work?” has nothing to chart, so it stays text. The figures in a block are always real: computed, read from your files or database, or given by you. The agent never draws placeholder numbers.
A request that reads either way can land on the wrong side. Say “in the chat” or “build it into the app” to settle it.

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What can the agent draw?

You don’t name the block. Ask the question and the agent picks one. Blocks can also sit in tabs, accordions and carousels. Photos come from Wikimedia Commons, credited to their author and licence. A trip plan stays a list: the agent draws a map only when where things are is the point.

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Talk back through an answer

Some controls work only in your browser. Others send a message, which appears in the transcript as your own, so nothing a click sends is hidden. A block’s buttons stay disabled until the agent’s text moves past that block, not until the whole reply ends. A click sent while the agent is working always steers the running turn, whatever your default for typed messages. If the turn can’t take it, the message waits in the queue instead.

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Read formulas in a reply

TeX in a reply or in the agent’s reasoning draws as typeset math, inline or centred on its own line. Codex’s \(…\) and \[…\] and Claude Code’s $…$ and $$…$$ draw the same.
Prices survive next to formulas: $5 and $10, $HOME/$USER and ($$) stay as written. A formula shows as source until it is closed, and one wider than the chat scrolls sideways.

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What are the limits?

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Turn it off

Interactive answers come from Generative UI, a skill that ships with Alpha, on by default for both agents. Switching it off changes only your sessions.
1

Open the Skills page

Click Skills in the sidebar, then the Installed tab. Generative UI is listed under Your skills.
2

Switch it off

Use the switch on its row, or open it and turn off Installed in your sessions. The dialog reads “Off keeps it out of your sessions alone.”
3

Send your next message

Replies are plain Markdown from then on. Blocks already in your transcripts keep drawing.
To ask for a drawn answer outright while the skill is on, mention it in your message: $generative-ui in Codex, /generative-ui in Claude Code. Math draws either way; it isn’t part of the skill.
Admins only Two more switches in the same dialog decide for every account. Ships with Alpha off moves Generative UI to the catalog, so it is only in the sessions of accounts that install it. Let the agent use it on its own off means only a mention runs it.

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Next steps

Queue, steer or stop

Choose whether a message typed mid-turn joins the running turn or waits for the next.

Prompt Alpha well

Phrase a request so it lands as an answer in the chat or as code in your app.

Skills

Install or write skills that teach the agent other ways to work and answer.

Follow the agent's work

Everything else a reply can hold: commands, edits, plans and errors.