20:34Nate Herk | AI Automation · Review
Claude Code vs. Codex: An 8-Site Head-to-Head Design Test
Same prompts, same brand kits, two coding agents — one landing page built by each, eight times over, scored on design and on the bill.
August 26thThe argument in one line.
A new AI agent built on GPT-6, called Astra, produces one-shot website and motion-graphic designs that beat prior AI design tools, and the gap comes less from the model itself than from feeding it strong reference inspiration, brand context via a pain-person-promise filter, and a purpose-built prompting skill for scroll depth and typography.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You use AI coding tools like Codex or Claude to generate website designs and want to see what a stronger model changes.
- You run an AI agency or freelance design/dev practice and need to know which AI tools produce less generic-looking output.
- You're curious about AI-generated motion graphics or automated video editing from raw footage.
SKIP IF…
- You want a step-by-step tutorial with exact reproducible prompts. This video shows results and general principles, not a prompt-by-prompt walkthrough.
- You're not interested in AI design tools or website generation at all.
The full version, fast.
Nate Herk argues a new AI agent, GPT-6's Astra, is now the strongest one-shot AI design tool he's tested, beating what he previously called the design king, Fable 5.1. He shows a run of one-shot generated websites across different brands, each with distinct layering, parallax scroll, and typography rather than one repeated template. He credits three things for the jump in quality: his own Scrollcraft prompting skill, pulling reference components from sites like godly.design and 21st.dev instead of describing a design in words, and filtering every choice through a pain-person-promise framework so the design fits its audience. He also shows Astra generating music-synced 3D motion graphics from two prompts and cutting a full event recap video from 152 GB of raw footage in 35 minutes.
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00:00 – 00:28
01 · Astra's One-Shot Designs
A tour of one-shot AI-generated websites across different brands, each showing distinct 3D layering and scroll depth rather than one repeated template.
00:28 – 01:59
02 · Astra vs Fable 5.1
Nate compares the new agent's first-pass output against Fable 5.1, his previous pick for best AI design tool, and calls Astra the stronger one-shot performer.
01:59 – 03:04
03 · Building with Scrollcraft
He credits his own Scrollcraft prompting skill, free in his community, for teaching the model layering, scroll behavior, typography, and spacing.
03:04 – 04:14
04 · Motion Graphics with HyperFrames
Two prompts and 20 to 30 minutes produce a music-synced 3D motion graphics piece, including a vertical cut, inside a Codex-style chat interface.
04:14 – 06:14
05 · The 152 GB Sizzle Reel
Given a link to 152 GB of AIS Live event footage and one prompt, the agent cuts a full minute-long recap with matched music and pulled-in brand assets in 35 minutes.
06:14 – 06:35
06 · Killing AI Design Slop
Nate argues skills and references alone aren't enough; the harder problem is supplying inspiration specific enough that the model can't default to a generic look.
06:35 – 08:26
07 · Finding Better Inspiration
He walks through godly.design, 21st.dev, and Awwwards as sources for real reference components, filtered by industry category, instead of describing designs in words.
08:26 – 08:37
08 · Final Thoughts
The workflow: define pain, person, and promise, gather inspiration, hand it to the agent, then iterate by asking for fixes until it lands.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- A new AI agent built on GPT-6, nicknamed Astra, produced one-shot website designs strong enough to unseat Fable 5.1 as the presenter's previous pick for best AI design tool.
- One-shot output, a single prompt with no iteration, is the fairest way to judge an AI model's raw design instinct before a human starts refining it.
- Layering text on one visual plane, imagery on another, and background on a third is what makes a scrolling website feel three-dimensional instead of flat.
- A dedicated prompting skill for scroll depth, typography, and spacing mattered as much to the output quality as the underlying model.
- Different site briefs (a content agency, a physical product, a consulting firm) produced structurally different layouts rather than one repeated template with new copy.
- Two prompts and 20 to 30 minutes produced a music-synced 3D motion graphics piece that would take a human editor far longer, and cost far more, to hand-produce.
- Given a link to 152 GB of raw event footage and a one-line prompt, the AI agent cut a full minute-long recap video, with matched music and pulled-in brand assets, in 35 minutes.
- Earlier AI tools failed at the same 152 GB footage-cutting task where the newer agent succeeded, which is used as evidence of a real capability jump rather than a lucky result.
- Whether a scrolling 3D hero section reads as premium or as tone-deaf depends entirely on the audience: it fits headphones aimed at teenagers and fails medication aimed at a 70-year-old.
- The Pain-Person-Promise framework, what pain the product solves, who it's for, and what promise it makes, is used as the filter for whether a design choice is right for a brand, separate from whether it looks impressive.
- Reference sites like godly.design, 21st.dev, and Awwwards let you hand an AI model existing components instead of describing a design in words, and that measurably raises output quality.
- The described workflow treats AI design as an iteration loop: generate a first pass, then repeatedly say 'I don't like this, fix that' until it lands, rather than expecting a perfect result from one prompt.
What actually separates good AI design from slop.
WHAT TO LEARN
The gap between generic AI output and a genuinely brand-fit design comes down to three levers: strong reference inspiration, a pain-person-promise brand filter, and a purpose-built prompting skill for scroll depth and typography, not a smarter model alone.
01Astra's One-Shot Designs
- Judge an AI design tool by its one-shot output first, a single prompt with zero iteration, before you start refining, so you're comparing raw model instinct rather than your own polish.
- A generated site holding one consistent brand vibe across many sections is a stronger signal of quality than any single flashy scroll effect.
02Astra vs Fable 5.1
- Treat 'best AI design tool' as a moving target you retest, not a settled pick, since a tool that took 15 iterations to nail one project may still lose to a rival's first attempt on a new brief.
- A subtle depth effect that still respects the brand's restraint reads as premium; an obvious or overused effect reads as generic AI slop regardless of how technically impressive it is.
03Building with Scrollcraft
- A model's raw generation quality and a purpose-built prompting skill are two separate levers, layering, scroll behavior, typography and spacing can be taught to a model as an explicit skill rather than left to chance.
- Putting text, imagery, and background on visibly separate depth layers is what makes a scrolled website feel immersive instead of flat, independent of which AI model renders it.
04Motion Graphics with HyperFrames
- A short, music-synced 3D motion graphic that would take a human editor real time and cost to produce can now come from two prompts and 20 to 30 minutes of AI generation.
- Benchmark an AI-generated motion graphic against its actual cost and time budget, not against a perfect professional edit, since the real comparison is what the same result would have cost a human.
05The 152 GB Sizzle Reel
- Handing an AI agent a link to raw footage and one plain-language prompt, rather than a shot list or script, can now be enough for it to find a narrative arc, pick music, and pull in existing brand assets on its own.
- An earlier tool failing at an identical footage-cutting task is useful negative evidence: it tells you a new result is a real capability jump and not just a lucky one-shot.
06Killing AI Design Slop
- Skills and reference material sourced from other people are a starting point, not a finish line, for avoiding generic-looking AI output.
- The hardest part of avoiding AI slop isn't the model, it's supplying inspiration and brand constraints specific enough that the model can't default to its generic training-data average.
07Finding Better Inspiration
- Feeding an AI model actual reference components, a specific hero section, CTA, or button from a real site, produces better results than describing the same design in words.
- Category-filtered inspiration libraries matter because a design that reads as premium in one industry can read as tone-deaf in another.
08Final Thoughts
- The reliable AI design workflow is a loop: generate a first pass, then repeatedly say 'I don't like this, fix that' until it lands, rather than expecting one perfect prompt to finish the job.
- Before writing a single prompt, name the pain the product solves, the person it's for, and the promise it's making, since that filter decides which stylistic choices are actually right for the brand.
Terms worth knowing.
- One-shot prompt
- A single prompt given to an AI model with no follow-up iteration, used to judge a model's raw design instinct before any human refinement.
- AI design slop
- Generic, tell-tale AI-generated design work, such as templated buttons, gradients, and layouts that look the same regardless of the brand or audience.
- Scrollcraft
- A prompting skill that teaches an AI model to build layered, parallax scroll depth, typography, and spacing so a generated website feels crafted rather than templated.
- HyperFrames
- An AI motion-graphics workflow used in the video to generate short, music-synced 3D animated video assets from just a couple of prompts.
- Pain, Person, Promise
- A three-part filter for judging whether a website design fits its audience: the pain it solves, the person it's for, and the promise it makes.
- Codex
- The AI coding assistant chat interface shown in the video driving the website generation, motion graphics, and automated video editing.
Things they pointed at.
Lines you could clip.
00:00
“We have a new AI design king and it's not even close.”
04:54
“Cost doesn't justify price. Price justifies cost.”
07:50
“If you're a 70-year-old man and you're looking for medication on your website and you're scrolling through a 3D world, you're going to think this is the worst thing I've ever seen.”
Word for word.
Read-along
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analogystory
We have a new AI design king and it's not even close. Take a look at some of these outputs I've been getting with Astra. Look how cool this scroll is.
How about this example with Glido? I think that this is just absolutely incredible. I think Ash does a really good job at making things 3D, dynamic, immersive without making it overwhelming because this is still a very clean hero section.
Now this one for perk form is a little bit more out there, but it's very impressive what it was able to do, but I still think it's pretty clean. And we have other types of animations here. Look at these cans come in.
I love how it was able to create these in 3D. Now I just put out a video that I said Fable 5 .1 was the design king because it helped me create something like this, which I loved, but... Astra is so much better with it so far.
Now, all of these examples that we just looked at and that we're gonna keep looking at were one -shot prompts. Think about that. If I took the time to actually sit down and iterate on these, they would be so much better.
This was Astra's first pass at an AI Automation Society website. You can see it tried to keep the same vibe. So right now, the one that Fable built, I think is the winner because I've iterated on this like.
15 times. But as a first shot, I think that this is really, really good. It's on brand.
And like I said, it has these animations and these interesting, you know, like immersive parallax things, but it's just, it's not too much. I've been seeing you guys talk about in the comments how, oh, I don't think these sites convert. And I think you're right, but it depends on the three Ps that I talk about, the pain, the person, the promise.
But I love how subtle this is, but instantly I think that this feels premium. You feel the depth and it's not too overwhelming and it still fits the brand that, you know. that you have here.
It still fits the messaging that you're trying to get across. Even something like a luxury watch brand. I think that even just this little element right here that lets us sort of scroll through really makes it, you know, it sets it apart from other types of websites in this industry.
Because it's not just about the hero section. I think that the way that all of these sites are designed are very on brand. It's not like one super specific template that we're following every single time.
It's different each time. So I know that I've just been jumping all around with examples. I just wanted to show you guys some of the different things that it's been able to do and some of the different ways that it uses its creative freedom and taste because I basically just told it to make me a bunch of websites.
Now, the one thing that all of these that I just showed you have in common is that they used my scroll craft skill. Which if you guys don't have that, join my free school community linked in the description. That's where you can get the skill and I'm constantly updating that thing as I find out more about AI design.
Not only does that skill understand things like layering, as you can see here, and scrolling, but it also understands things like typography and spacing and all of those other elements that you need to make the website actually feel good as you continue to scroll through. But I think that's been one of the biggest things that I've realized lately is the layering adds so much depth because you can clearly see how the text is on a different layer than the background image.
on a different layer than the bike, which is on a different layer than the rocks right here. And that's what makes it feel super immersive without being over the top, at least in my opinion, because at the end of the day, all of this stuff is subjective and it's all about taste. But like I said, my scroll craft skill has all that knowledge in there.
And what you've noticed about all of these different websites I've shown you so far is that they're all different types of businesses. We had a content agency, we had physical products. So this one is a consulting firm and all of these have different vibes.
They have different ways that the sections are actually structured. This one has like a sidebar over here and we haven't seen that yet on the other ones. Now on top of website design, I'm also talking about things like motion graphics and design using something like hyperframes.
So let me play this example for you and pay attention to the 3D elements and also pay attention to the music and how it's synced to what's going on.
And I'm not going to play this whole thing, but it also created me a vertical version. So I'll play a few seconds.
Now those obviously aren't anything crazy. They're not going to go viral. But if you consider that that was just two prompts and took me, you know, 20 to 30 minutes, how much time would that have taken?
And how much would that have cost you if you... paid a human editor to do that. So much more time and money.
And here's an example that I think is even crazier because what I had to do here is for AIS Live, we have this folder where we have like over 100 gigabytes. You can see 152 gigabytes of footage to look through. And all I did was give it the link and I said, hey, create me like a sizzle reel recap that's a minute long from this event.
And look what I got. Logged off yesterday, just pausing. I had goosebumps.
I was so excited and I had so much fun.
Cost doesn't justify price. Price justifies cost.
What is the value of what you know and what you know how to do?
This culture that we have here at AIS is just really special.
So the only thing wrong here is this domain. That's not the real domain. But I am just so impressed by this.
And I know some of you guys might look at that and be like, oh, I saw some editing mistakes or whatever. But the music, what it had to think through, all of that, it had to look through all that footage and basically figure out how to tell a story out of it. And I thought it did a really good job at that.
It also had to look through all of our logos and our designs and our branding and our images and our assets for that. It found everything and it pulled it all in. And I was just like, honestly.
for 35 minutes is how long it took. So, so impressed because I've tried to do something like that with Sol. I've tried to do something like that with Fable 5 .1 and it did not go nearly as well.
This thing just has the understanding and it's so pragmatic and logical about it that I'm just like, seriously, it's another huge leap forward to me. Now, when we talk about actually killing AI design slop or having things that really go up to the next tier, of course, it's using things like skills that you might find on GitHub like mine or like other people's.
But what I think is the most important thing is inspiration. It's really hard to just give an AI model a task like make me a website, here are the brand guidelines and have it just actually create you something that doesn't look very AI generated. So what you have to do is you have to have inspiration.
And you can find that in the form of something like godly .design, where you can find actual websites to take inspiration from, or you can find individual components like the hero sections or the CTAs or the footers, and you can find these components. You can do the exact same thing on something like 21st .dev. There are so many amazing things here.
Like I said, hero sections, different components for the UI. You can find forms, AI chats, you can find buttons. Using all of these things and giving these code blocks or giving these website URLs to Astra, makes them so much better.
Because now I could come into any one of these 10 sites or the other ones that we had generated and just be like, you know what? I really like this button, for example, right here, but I would like this to be changed out with this button that I found on 21st .dev because I feel like it's more on brand or I like the dynamic element around it.
You can also come to something like Awards with three Ws, awards .com, that has a ton of award -winning sites. And you can also come in here and organize by category, which I think is really important because an e -commerce site probably needs to look different than a restaurant and hotel site, which probably needs to look different than a fashion site.
Because yes, there's one element of AI slop where it's like, you've got those certain types of buttons and the certain type of fonts and the certain gradient in the background. But the other element of AI slop is when it feels like you're looking at something that is meant for someone else. If you're a 70 -year -old man and you're - looking for medication on your website and you're scrolling through a 3D world, you're going to be like, this is the worst thing I've ever seen.
But if you're a teenage dude and you're trying to buy new headphones and the headphones on the site are spinning and you can see inside of it and it's like transforming, you're going to think that's sick. And that's just the truth. So think about the pain, think about the person, think about the promise and think about inspiration sites.
And then you just get out of Astra's way. You give it your brand guidelines, you give it the copy, you give it scroll craft skills so you can create all of this sorts of cool stuff. And then you watch the site or you scroll through it, you say, ah, I don't like this, fix that.
I don't like this, fix that. And then you just keep iterating and that's how it's done. So anyways, guys, that is gonna do it for this one.
I hope you enjoyed. I hope you learned something new. And if you did, please give it a like.
It helps me out a ton. And as always, I appreciate you guys making it to the end of the video and I'll see you on the next one. Thanks, everyone.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Nate Herk opens with a blunt claim: there's a new AI design king, and it's not close. What follows is a tour of one-shot AI-generated websites, motion graphics, and a full event recap video, built to make the case.
Named ideas worth stealing.
01:23acronym
Pain, Person, Promise
- Pain
- Person
- Promise
Nate's filter for judging whether a website design actually fits its audience and business, separate from whether it looks visually impressive.
Steal forany landing page or brand site brief
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
08:18subscribe
“if you enjoyed and learned something, please give it a like. It helps me out a ton.”
Soft, reciprocity-based ask placed after all the value, not before. No hard sell for Astra itself since it isn't a product he sells; the harder push mid-video is toward his free Skool community for the Scrollcraft skill.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
AFFILIATECommission earned if you click.
OTHER LINKSAlso linked in the description.
Visual structure at a glance.
