Owen Barnes
Building for the world as it's becoming.
I create new products on the frontier of AI.
Latest updates.
August 2026
Launched Livealy, the world's first live website creator. This website runs on it.
June 2026
Won 2nd Prize on the Generative UI track at the Google CopilotKit Hackathon in London.
May 2026
Started building the future of websites and generative UI. It became Livealy.
April 2026
Our team won first prize and the Google DeepMind prize at Tech Europe AI Hackathon with HiveCoding. Watch the demo.
March 2026
Built ClawClub.social. Fully open source. Join the OG group today or start your own!
February 2026
Launched my free audiobook about AI: You're Going To Be Fine.
Three things I believe.
The beliefs behind the work: intelligence is abundant, heart is the moat, and the next generation is already changing what technology is for.
1. "Smart" is abundant.
Frontier AI models are now more intelligent than any human. Not just PhD level in one subject, but in all subjects combined.
2. "Heart" is the new moat.
Empathy and taste are now the most valuable skills in technology.
3. A new generation is rewriting the rules.
Young people have no appetite for endless wars, divisive media, broken institutions, or technology that makes us feel disconnected.
Technology is neither good nor bad. It mirrors the consciousness of whoever builds it.
Who I am.
I've been falling in love with technology since I was a kid in the 90s, inserting AOL CDs, connecting to IRC on a modem that blocked the phone line to the house.
Today I live at the frontier of AI. I used Claude Code the week it launched, and jumped on OpenClaw early (see ClawClub).
After winning several hackathons around the idea of an in-browser rendering engine, I kept experimenting with this idea and it became Livealy.com - the world's first live website creator. I'm now working on this full time, with consulting and workshops alongside.
Contributed
Status.im whitepaper · Polkadot litepaper
Speaking
London Business School · Imperial College · Urbit
Events
Devcon x5 · EthCC x3 · EthBerlin x2 · 10+ Hackathons
Talks.
The Future of Personal AI
Urbit Assembly · Lisbon · 2023
The Future of Apps
Urbit Volcano Summit · El Salvador · 2023
Twelve Thoughts on the Future of Web3
EthBrno · 2022
Censorship in an Immutable World
Talk
Bitcoin and Ethereum
Technical talk · London
Problems with Modern Software Development
Talk · 2018
Working with me.
Everyone is quietly asking the same question. What do we do now? I help people and businesses find the answer. Not just the technology. The whole picture: where the future is going, what your business will do in it, and how you change with it instead of going extinct. Technical, practical and, yes, spiritual.
Thinking partner
Hard problems, two focused sessions a month, and direct access between them.
Speaking
Technical talks that connect AI, software and culture, and land with every kind of audience.
Prototyping
Fast proof-of-concepts that make the future tangible before the meeting ends.
Workshops
I can bring your team up to speed on frontier AI. Not just the tools, but the mindset shift required to use them well. I focus on what AI can do for your business, not generic training.
“I leave every session more terrified about the potential for AI to up-end the world as we currently know it. But at least somewhat reassured that people like Owen are thinking about what that future might look like and how to make sure that it works for everyone rather than a privileged few.”
Dr Christopher Cassar, Candesic · AI Agents workshop · Six Senses London · August 2026
What I'm building.
You're looking at it. Livealy re-imagines what a website is in the AI era, and it is the first of its kind in the world. Click around. On desktop, press the D and R keys.
It generates live, personalized pages on demand, in your brand's own colors, fonts and images. Each one can carry video, audio, Google Maps, contact forms and interactive FAQs, composed and rendered in under two seconds for around half a cent.
Real-time HTML would be far too slow and expensive, so it runs on two invented protocols: one tuned for the model's output tokens, one sent to the browser and rendered into a fully animated, scroll-aware page with collision detection and readability guarantees. The magic is the bridge between them, which decides the layout and composition of every page.
ClawClub - private, curated communities with zero engagement metrics. No ads, likes, or feed to scroll. Your AI agent only tells you about events, job opportunities, and posts it thinks you'll find interesting.
You're Going To Be Fine - a free audiobook for anyone who gets a knot in their stomach thinking about AI. Part reassurance, part wake-up call. Releasing it taught me that more people are scared about AI than I originally thought.
Writing.
On dynamic rendering, natural language specifications, and the end of the app paradigm.
The traditional hosting model is backwards for vibe coders. They need vibe hosting.
February 2025
Let's talk.
If you're building something interesting and want a thinking partner who lives at the leading edge, get in touch.