Karpathy: Ask Your AI to Respond in HTML

A One-Line Addition That Changes Everything

On May 11, 2026, Andrej Karpathy published a widely-shared observation: adding structure your response as HTML to the end of an LLM query and opening the result in a browser produces dramatically richer output than markdown. He also noted success asking the model to present output as slideshows and other visual formats.

A Framework for Human-AI Interface Evolution

Beyond the practical tip, Karpathy outlined a progression of human-AI communication formats:

Stage 1: Raw text

Stage 2: Markdown

Stage 3: HTML with interactive elements

Stage 4: Interactive neural videos and simulations

Why Visual Output Matters

Karpathy grounded his argument in neuroscience: approximately one-third of human brainpower is dedicated to visual processing, making visual outputs far more efficient than text for information transfer. Audio is humanity preferred input to AI; images, animations, and video are AI preferred output to humans.

Plenty of Runway Before Neural Interfaces

Significant advances in human-AI interaction design remain possible before brain-computer interfaces become necessary. The tweet resonated widely with 16,000+ likes as a rare combination of a concrete, immediately actionable tip and a compelling long-range research direction for the field.