Dark mode reads as “tech” to a model, so everything technical gets it, and then everything else does too. Weak on its own. Strong in combination with glowing blobs, which only show up on dark pages, which is why they are there.
Other tells in visual style
- Glass panels: Semi-transparent panels with a backdrop blur and a thin light border, stacked over a gradient so there is something to blur.
- Glowing blobs and orbs: Blurred circles of colour floating behind the content, or a glowing orb as the hero image of a product that has no shape.
- Gradient text: A headline, or one word in it, filled with a colour gradient and clipped to the letters.
- Inter or Poppins, untouched: The page is set in Inter, Poppins or the framework default at the default sizes, with no type decision visible anywhere.
- Rounded corners on everything: Cards, buttons, images, inputs and badges all share one large corner radius, usually the framework's largest preset.
- Second-generation tasteful defaults: Cream with terracotta, or near-black with acid green, applied as the automatic answer to "don't make it look like AI".
- The italic serif accent word: One word of the headline set in an italic serif, the rest in a sans, as the single "designed" touch on the page.
- The purple gradient: A hero background or button that fades from indigo to violet to pink, the house colour of the 2024 to 2026 AI builder generation.