My 3 Webflow Conference Wishes (Before Webflow Conference 2026)

Next week I'm headed to Boston for the Webflow conference, and here's my wish list. What I mean by that is here's what I would do if I could wave a magic wand and get everything I wanted out of the conference. If you've ever been on any Webflow calls, sometimes the researchers will ask you, "If you could wave your magic wand, how would you change this or what would you want out of these features?" I'm going to do that and steal their language a little bit, and I'm going to do that for the conference.

Now, we've already gotten a few teasers this year. I think the big one that we got was the Webflow icon in the dock of a Mac, implying that there's going to be some sort of a desktop app or some sort of a native app experience. We can speculate all we want, but we're not going to know until next week. But, I'm excited about that. I hope we'll get some performance boost, obviously some additional features.

There was also a blog post talking about how Webflow is wanting to return to its roots, where code is the base element and code is sort of the native language. Right now, there's a lot of back-end complication where code is represented in the Webflow database, and then it gets compiled and rendered properly as HTML. It seems like they're wanting to kind of return to form and return to just the simple code-based editor, and that will hopefully make things better for all the AI tools that everyone wants to bring along with them.

Instead of having to go through Webflow's interpretation layer, hopefully they're going to be able to just edit the code directly. So, if I could wave my magic wand, here are my wishes for Webflow conference. Wish number one is for everything that we can currently do in the Webflow UI to also be available in a code back-end. Now, what I mean by that is that I want my AI agents to be able to use every feature of Webflow just as well as I can from the front-end when I'm clicking buttons and using the Webflow interface.

I want that code back-end to be just as capable, just as easy, and just as full-featured as the front-end currently is. Currently, there are a number of things that are not possible at all, and other things that just don't work fully or that aren't super well-documented or easy to use. The big example for me right now is interactions version three. You really can't use any interactions through MCP connections.

You have to be in the designer in that specific panel. So, it's not a deal-breaker. Now, I've heard a rumor that anytime Webflow is building a new feature now, they're also trying to build it for the MCP, which I think makes total sense. That's great. That's how I wish the entire product was. So, if I could wave my magic wand, that would be for me the number one thing that I would change. And I know it's a huge ask, and I know there's a ton of work that would have to go into that.

But, again, if I could wave my magic wand. Wish number two is for a little bit more transparency from the Webflow executive team. Back in May, there was a big restructuring and a downsize in the Webflow staff. It was sort of happening around the same time as other companies in the tech industry were also reducing their size. The restructuring by itself isn't an issue, but there were a number of other things that happened sort of around the same time that we haven't really gotten a ton of communication about.

The multiple outages that have happened to the Webflow platform, mainly centered around the Webflow designer. So, people like me, agencies, and freelancers, there were a number of days over the last year that we couldn't access the designer at all. It was frozen, it was glitchy, it wasn't signing us into our sites. Even though it didn't really affect the front end, which is great, really appreciate that, it did affect my ability to deliver for my clients.

We did get some root cause analysis and some information about what had caused that, but then that leads me to kind of the third thing is that Allan Leinwand, the CTO, left pretty suddenly, kind of came out of the blue, and we didn't really get any official communication from Webflow about that. Even now, there hasn't really been a lot of official communication and posting about what happened to Allan.

He's now at Cloudflare, and the news of Allan's departure actually came from Cloudflare. They announced that they were so happy to have him join. It was kind of a shock to the community cuz we thought he was our CTO, you know? So, when you zoom out and look at all that together, the restructuring, the designer outages, and then the departure of the CTO, I think that it's pretty clear that we didn't get a ton of clear communication.

There were also a few other senior leaders at Webflow that have left over this last year. I don't really want to add to the rumor mill or the speculation, and I know that Webflow doesn't actually owe me an explanation, but if we had a little more transparency, I think that would provide two things. First is that it would kind of suck the air out of the room concerning all those rumors and people speculating about why did Allan leave, what happened with this, what's the status of all these bugs, you know, whatever it might be.

I think if we had even some a little bit of official communication and a status update, then it would clear some of that speculation. I think the second thing for me is that it would help me with the confidence that Webflow is a solid company that I can build my business on. One of the things I really always appreciate about the Webflow conference is the ability to talk to the Webflow staff directly, to interface with the community, my peers, but really the Webflow team.

They're always there, they're available to ask questions. Even the senior leaders will just walk the floor, they would love to talk to us, and I always appreciate that relationship that feels real and solid. So, as long as we can continue that, just that be able to have that connection with the team. So, a little bit of transparency would help me with that. These are all pretty big moves, and I would love to have a little bit more information about what changed or what didn't change, and just what's going on behind the scenes.

Wish number three is for Webflow to buy Unicorn Studio. Now, this is a huge long shot. Like I'm saying, magic wand, if I could get whatever I want, I would have Webflow purchase and integrate Unicorn Studio directly into the platform. If you're not familiar with Unicorn Studio, it's a super cool tool for 3D shaders, interactions, and animation, and it really feels like the next level beyond just 2D interfaces and animation that we can get with GSAP and their animation engine.

It's super cool, and I think it's a perfect match for Webflow's existing animation engine, and even there's a lot of overlap between the interface and what those two platforms actually look like. I just think it would be super cool to imagine custom CMS data and variables and all that bound right into the shaders and the special effects of Unicorn Studio. I also think Webflow's powerful back end and the MCP, everything that Webflow has on the infrastructure side, would go a long way to helping Unicorn Studio be super powerful and super easy to use.

Like I said, super long shot, but we have seen it before with GSAP, could be a great opportunity for another surprise. I'm not going to lie, I think this conference feels a little bit different than the other conferences I've been to. This conference has a lot of expectations riding on it. I've been to every Webflow conference, even back when it was called the No Code Conference. And it's always felt more like a community gathering and a place for us to connect and to talk and to get updates.

But the industry has changed so much this year, and I think there's just a lot of pressure on Webflow to wow us and to show us something that's really going to take us into the next year. And I don't actually feel that way about Webflow. I'm definitely still on Team Webflow. I've said it before, but I don't think they've done anything wrong strategically. I think they've adapted well to the market, and I think they have a super strong foundation for mixing the two worlds of developer and marketer.

And I think one of the big things that we're going to see in maybe the next 6 months, year, is that a lot of these vibe coded AI workflows that are so popular right now are going to start to show the cracks and the pain points when you start to expose them to production systems, when you start to hand it off from an agency and a freelancer that's there to build it and hold your hand. A lot of my job is coming in after an agency has turned over a Webflow site, and I get to see how a client takes care of that site, and they do not do as good of a job as you might think preserving the class systems and working with the system that the agency might have built.

And that goes double or triple for a complicated code base. So, I think we're going to see a lot of issues that Webflow has already solved, and people are going to maybe look back and regret moving away from Webflow. I'm just not so sure that all of these new AI workflows are the right solution for every type of company. I also think Webflow has already been solving the problem of how to have marketing people and technical people working together, and many of these new AI builder tools are building in a visual editor component because it's just not efficient to prompt every single change.

You do want to be able to just click and type or click and select the right variable. Webflow's already solved that problem. They've already been doing it for years. I think a lot of that is already moving in the right direction. I'm super excited to see what Webflow has in store for us for this new age of AI. I think it's going to be a great week, and I hope to see you all there.