Built-in AI

Brilliant has an AI agent built into the canvas. It reads your file, sees your selection, and runs real design commands on your behalf: creating elements, editing properties, running layout commands, searching across canvases, and exporting. You describe the outcome, and it builds it while you watch, in native elements you can keep editing by hand.

This page is the map of what the built-in AI is and how it fits together. If you just want to send your first prompt, jump to Your First AI Chat.

Brilliant AI or Your own AI

The chat has two power sources. Brilliant AI is the default: Brilliant-provided models, included with every plan (usage shows as a percent used and a reset date), that work on your first message with no setup. The request routes through Brilliant's servers to Google. Your own AI (your own keys and coding agents) is the alternative: bring an Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or OpenRouter key, or your local Claude Code login, and that request goes straight from the app to your provider. A key you bring never routes through Brilliant's servers, and you pay your provider directly. The details of exactly what is sent, where it goes, and what never leaves are in Privacy and consent.

On the Free plan you get Brilliant AI every month (the default, no setup), plus 10 built-in chat messages a day on your own key. Paid plans raise your Brilliant AI usage: Personal $20/month (the base), Pro $50/month (5x), Max $100/month (10x), Max 20x $200/month (20x), monthly only, each a standalone price that includes everything in Personal, and make the built-in chat unlimited on your own AI. When the month's usage runs out, the next send opens the upgrade page, a page on the command-palette shell (the same overlay as sign in), which names when your usage resets and offers the next paid rung or setting up your own AI, and external agents over MCP are never capped on any plan. Details are in Plans and billing.

To bring your own AI instead of Brilliant AI, connect a provider in a couple of clicks, or route through a Claude Code subscription you already have. See Providers and models, which deepens the quick-start in Connect an AI Provider.

What it can do on the canvas

Once a session is running, the AI can:

Create designs as native, editable elements: UIs, pages, dashboards, illustrations, diagrams, wireframes.
Edit existing work: change properties, reparent, rename, delete, reorder.
Run app commands (align, distribute, auto layout, components, and more), each with full undo.
Read your selection and search the canvas by name, text, type, color, or component.
Export to PNG, JPEG, WebP, SVG, PDF, or HTML/React.
Generate images and vectors and place them on the canvas.

The full tour with before-and-after examples is in What the AI can do.

How it differs from an external agent

Brilliant works two ways, and both are valid:

The built-in chat (this section) is docked in the app. You get selection-aware inputs, per-chat undo, color and position pickers, and progressive previews that stream onto the canvas as each step lands. It runs on Brilliant AI by default, or on your own AI.
An external agent over MCP (Use with AI agents) drives the same canvas from your own editor, like Claude Code or Cursor.

Same canvas, same undo stack. Many designers keep both around.

Where it lives

The AI input sits in the bottom toolbar. Press / on the canvas, or click the field, to focus it and open the chat panel. Sessions dock as tabs, run in parallel, and persist between launches. The full walkthrough of panels, tabs, and shortcuts is in Sessions and chat.

Try it in Playground

Brilliant AI is the default, so your first message just works with no provider connected. If you would rather watch first, the Replays pills on an empty chat replay recorded sessions end to end, so you can see how the agent behaves before spending Brilliant AI usage or connecting a key (with an AI of your own connected, the same pills are prompt suggestions). More on setup in Connect an AI Provider.

Send your first prompt: Your First AI Chat.
Connect a model: Providers and models.
See the full capability set: What the AI can do.