Inside Google Opal: A New Way to Think, Build, and Ship with AI

What comes after vibe coding? This.

Hi, and welcome to The Atomic Builder!

Let me just say - I’m still a little hurt that nobody sent me an extra ticket to Oasis 25’ after last week’s heartfelt plea.

But we’re friends. So I’m choosing growth. And forgiveness.

Now… let’s talk about something that’s been stuck in my head louder than ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’.

One of the most quoted lines in the world of AI products is this:

“The hottest new programming language is English.”Andrej Karpathy

And for good reason. It captures the magic of generative AI — anyone with an idea and a keyboard can now build. But something is changing. The more we build, the clearer it becomes:

English is great for vibes, but isn’t always enough.

And conversation isn’t always the right interface. Frankly, the conversational interfaces of today are limiting, we’ve acknowledged that for a while - ever tried quickly and seamlessly retrieving multiple thoughts from your ChatGPT history?

This week, I want to show you why a new generation of tools — starting with Google Opal (US only at the moment / or for the VPN savvy…) — may rewrite the playbook for how we build.

Let’s dive in…

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🧩 The Limit of Language

There’s been a wave of AI tools promising you can “just describe your idea” and within a blink of an eye — product built. Most AI-native tools still revolve around this familiar pattern:

  • You talk to a chatbot

  • The chatbot generates something (an image, an app, a document)

  • You start tweaking

Of course, I do that here at The Atomic Builder HQ, BUT, if you’ve been reading this blog closely, you’ll know it isn’t always that simple.

The flow above is vibe coding at its best. And it has got us far.

But it also provides us with challenges.

Because while talking is a great way to start, it’s a terrible way to structure.

You don’t want a transcript. You want a blueprint.

Think about it: When you have a brilliant product idea, you don’t want to scroll through a chat log to find it. You want clarity. You want a blueprint.

And that’s exactly where Google Opal changes the game.

💡 Enter Google Opal: A New Interface for Building

Google Opal is part of the Labs team’s latest wave of AI tools. It’s purely experimental at the moment, so it’s not clear if it will fully see the light of day, but with the explosion of these apps, the smart money is on this not being another Killed by Google product.

On the surface, it’s a visual builder.

But underneath, it represents something more powerful:

A shift from chat-based magic to structured, visual prompt design.

In Opal, you build using language and nodes — each one powered by a prompt. You can chain them together, iterate visually, and create logic that lives in the connections, not just the words.

This is why it appeals to me:

  • Beginner-friendly: You can (still!) start with English. Literally, describe what you want, and Opal will scaffold it.

  • Builder-ready: You can then dive in, tweak the prompts, rewire the logic, and make it yours.

It meets you where you are — whether you’re vibe coding or architecting workflows.

I don’t think Opal is just a better way to chat. It has the potential to be a gateway to an entirely new product category.

Google Opal - A new way to build with no code

🛠️ Prompt Apps Are a New (ish…) Product Category

We’re entering the era of apps that aren’t built from codebases, but from prompt flows.

These aren’t chatbots. They aren’t no-code apps either.

Prompt Apps — products where the functionality isn’t defined by code, but by chained prompts and logic layers.

These aren’t traditional web apps. They’re:

  • Lightweight, but powerful

  • Built on intent, not infrastructure

  • More like systems than screens

A new type of mini-product, where the logic is your build experience.

And just like early websites or early apps, they feel small at first — but the design patterns they introduce? They’re going to scale fast.

How can you get the best out of these tools? Think logically to design a prompt-driven experience.

🧠 Prompt apps are the new MVPs — fast, modular, and defined by intent.

🧱 Let’s Build Something

Let’s stop talking about the shift — let me help you actually feel it.

Here’s a simple, lightweight tool you can build in 5–10 minutes:

🛠️ The Idea: AI Feedback Coach that gives structured feedback on a product idea.

The Prompt I’ll use in Opal

“I want to build an app that gives structured feedback on any product idea. The user enters their idea, and the app responds with analysis across three categories: Product Vision, User Needs, and Risks or Blockers.”

The Opal homepage - Enter your prompt here

It’s a simple app, so reasonably quickly I have an ability to run it, by hitting start.

You can also customise the themes, but that doesn’t seem to work that well yet

Remember, this first step would be customised to what you are building

The output, which will change based on your input (!)

What is interesting below, is you’ll see Opal auto-generates a visual prompt flow — complete with an input step, a categorised feedback generator, and an HTML output step.

What you see below is the full logic path behind my app:

  • Input node: A place for users to submit their product idea

  • Prompt node: A behind-the-scenes prompt that categorises feedback into Product Vision, User Needs, and Risks & Blockers

  • Output node: A webpage returned with that feedback, structured and styled for clarity

This is where Opal shines: I can see and edit each building block, reuse them elsewhere, or expand the logic with new branches.

It’s not just chat — it’s a system I can modify very specifically.

node life

Edit the prompts behind the nodes or add new nodes to build out your app

Why it’s powerful: You’re chaining prompts to design a thinking system — not just output.

It’ll make you rethink how product logic can be expressed!

🐘 Couldn’t You Just Use ChatGPT?

You could.

You could drop a product idea into ChatGPT and ask for feedback. And it might even look similar, once.

But here’s the difference:

ChatGPT

Product Pulse (via Opal)

One-off conversation

Repeatable, reusable app

Output stuck in a chat log

Output formatted and visualized

No clear structure

Modular prompt nodes with logic

Hard to share or remix

Built to be shared, refined, and scaled

You prompt, then scroll

You design a system of thought

✨ ChatGPT is great for prompting. But Opal lets you build reusable workflows.

With Opal, you’re not just generating ideas — you’re creating systems that can be reused, repurposed, and refined over time. You’re not prompting for output; you’re designing a repeatable flow.

That’s the leap from vibes to blueprints.

🧪 Your Turn…

Google Opal is free to explore - and surprisingly fun!

I want you to build a prompt app you’d actually use at work.

It could be:

  • A client onboarding summary tool

  • A “reasons to build this” feature validator

  • A naming assistant for new product ideas

🎯 Use Opal. Keep it simple.

💌 Send me what you make — I’ll feature the most creative one next week.

Don’t want to build one yourself? You could remix the simple Product Pulse (quick…before it hits the ‘killed by Faisal’ group of apps) I built to get a feel or try one of the many apps in the Opal library.

The future of building - Is it prompt-based and visual?

Final Thoughts

Welcome to the era of prompt products. Am I done with Replit, Bolt, Lovable et al? Of course not! But this is an interesting paradigm shift we’ll continue to explore.

We started this journey believing English was the new programming language.

But the truth is more nuanced, perhaps we need blueprints as well as vibes!

Maybe Google Opal helps with that…

Until next time, keep experimenting, keep building, and as always - stay atomic. 👊

Faisal

This Week’s Build Beats 🎵

Each issue, we pair the newsletter with a track to keep you inspired while you build.

This week, because ChatGPT outputs vanish in chat threads. But prompt apps? Those live forever.

🎧 “Live Forever” – Oasis

Grab the playlist on Spotify - I add to it each week!

‘Maybe I dont really want to know…'

Thanks for Joining!

I’m excited to help usher in this new wave of AI-empowered product builders. If you have any questions or want to share your own AI-building experiences (the successes and the failures), feel free to reply to this email or connect with me on socials.

Until next time…

Faisal

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