How to Clone Any App's Design with AI (And Why You'd Want To)

Last week someone asked me if they could use GenDesigns to "clone" the Robinhood app. My first thought was to talk about copyright. But their actual question was more interesting: they wanted to understand why Robinhood's design works so well.

Cloning apps—recreating their designs—is one of the fastest ways to learn UI design. It's also useful for building competitors, creating mockups for pitches, or just exploring how good apps are constructed. If you want to dive deeper into the learning side, check out our guide on learning UI design by cloning apps.

Here's how to do it.

Why clone apps?

There are a few legitimate reasons.

Learning: Recreating an app forces you to notice decisions you'd miss just looking at it. Why did they use that shade of green? Why is that button there and not here? The act of recreation surfaces these questions.

Competitive research: Building an alternative to an existing product? Starting from a proven design and modifying it is faster than starting from scratch.

Client communication: "I want something like Airbnb but for boat rentals." Showing a modified clone communicates direction better than words.

Pitch decks: Demonstrating how your concept would work by showing it in a familiar interface.

What's NOT okay: Launching a direct copy and pretending it's original. Don't do that. We're talking about learning and inspiration, not fraud.

The old way (painful)

Before AI, cloning an app design meant:

1. Screenshot every screen
2. Import into Figma
3. Trace each element manually
4. Guess at font sizes, colors, spacing
5. Recreate icons or find similar ones
6. Repeat for dozens of screens

A decent recreation took days. Most people gave up partway through.

Clone any app in minutes: Use GenDesigns' Clone UI Design feature — paste a screenshot or describe the app and get a recreation you can customize.

The AI way (fast)

GenDesigns can generate app designs based on text descriptions—including descriptions of existing apps.

The basic approach:

Create an app that looks like Spotify.
Dark theme with green accents.
Include: home feed with playlists, search, library, and now playing screens.

The AI knows what Spotify looks like. It generates screens that capture the essence without pixel-perfect copying.

More specific:

Create a music streaming app with Spotify's design language:
- Dark background (#121212)
- Green accent color (#1DB954)
- Card-based album artwork display
- Bottom navigation with Home, Search, Library
- Floating mini-player at bottom

Include screens for: Home, Search, Playlist detail, Now playing

This gets you closer to the original while still being your own creation.

Step-by-step: Cloning an app

Let's walk through cloning a real app—I'll use Duolingo as an example because it has distinctive design choices.

Step 1: Study the original

Spend 10 minutes using the app. Note:

• Color scheme (Duolingo: green, white, with colorful character illustrations)
• Typography style (friendly, rounded, bold headers)
• Navigation pattern (bottom tabs)
• Unique elements (progress bars, streak counters, character mascots)
• Layout patterns (cards, lists, progression paths)

Don't screenshot yet. Understand the feel first.

Step 2: Write your initial prompt

Create a language learning app inspired by Duolingo's design.

Visual style:
- Bright, friendly, and motivating
- Primary color: vibrant green
- White backgrounds with colorful accents
- Rounded corners and soft shapes
- Playful but not childish

Key screens:
1. Home screen with lesson progression path (vertical journey)
2. Lesson selection within a unit
3. Active lesson/question screen
4. Streak and stats dashboard
5. Profile with achievements

Include:
- Progress indicators and XP counters
- Streak counter prominently displayed
- Hearts/lives system indicator
- Character mascot elements where appropriate

Step 3: Generate and evaluate

Run the prompt. You'll get screens that capture Duolingo's energy without being direct copies.

Evaluate what's working and what isn't:

• Does it feel like the same app category?
• Are the key interaction patterns present?
• Is the emotional tone similar?

Step 4: Refine specific elements

Now iterate on details:

The home screen is good, but I want the lesson path to feel more like a vertical game board with connected nodes, similar to how Duolingo shows the journey.

Or:

Add a celebration state screen for completing a lesson—confetti, XP earned, streak extended.

Step 5: Make it your own

Here's where cloning becomes creation. Change enough to make it distinctly yours:

Keep the energy but change the color scheme to blue and orange. Replace the owl mascot concept with a robot companion. This is for a coding education app, not language learning.

You've learned from Duolingo's design without copying it.

Examples: Cloning popular apps

Cloning Instagram's feed

Design a photo-sharing app with Instagram's layout approach:

- Clean white header with logo left, icons right (DM, notifications)
- Feed of full-width photos with engagement bar below (like, comment, share, save)
- Subtle like counts and caption preview
- Stories row at top with circular avatars
- Bottom tabs: Home, Search, Create, Reels, Profile

Keep the minimal, photography-focused aesthetic. Content should be the star, not the UI.

Cloning Notion's workspace

Design a productivity app with Notion's design philosophy:

- Minimal chrome, lots of whitespace
- Left sidebar with nested page structure
- Main content area with block-based layout
- Subtle gray tones with occasional pops of color for tags
- Sans-serif typography (clean and readable)
- Slash command hint for adding content

Screens: Workspace home, Page editor, Database view

Cloning Robinhood's finance UI

Design a stock trading app following Robinhood's design patterns:

- Dark theme option with green for gains, red for losses
- Large, bold portfolio value display
- Simple line charts for stock performance
- Card-based stock list with mini sparklines
- Clean, minimal interface that doesn't feel like traditional finance

Screens: Portfolio home, Stock detail, Order flow, Account

What AI cloning captures vs misses

What it captures well:

Overall aesthetic: Color schemes, general visual language, mood Layout patterns: How content is organized, navigation structure Common components: Standard UI elements arranged similarly Proportions: General spacing and sizing relationships

What it might miss:

Micro-interactions: Specific animations and transitions Exact specifications: Precise pixel measurements, exact hex colors Custom iconography: Unique icon sets Brand-specific elements: Proprietary illustrations, fonts

For learning and inspiration, what AI captures is usually enough. For pixel-perfect recreation (if that's even your goal), you'd need manual refinement.

Legal and ethical considerations

Let me be direct: there's a line between learning from designs and stealing them.

Generally fine:

• Studying and learning from existing designs
• Creating mockups that reference existing apps for pitch purposes
• Building in an established category with your own take
• Using similar patterns (patterns aren't copyrightable)

Probably not fine:

• Launching an app that's visually indistinguishable from another
• Using another company's brand elements
• Copying unique, distinctive visual assets
• Pretending your app is the original

The law varies by jurisdiction, but the principle is consistent: learn from others, create your own.

Turning clones into original work

The best use of cloning is as a starting point. Here's the progression:

Stage 1: Pure clone Recreate the original as closely as possible. This is for learning. Don't ship this.

Stage 2: Variation Same structure, different skin. Change colors, typography, imagery. It's clearly inspired by but not copying the original.

Stage 3: Evolution Take what works, discard what doesn't, add your own ideas. The original is a reference point, not a template.

Stage 4: Original After enough iteration, you've created something new. The DNA of the original might be there, but it's transformed into your own creation.

Most shipped products should be at Stage 3 or 4.

Practical exercise: Clone three apps this week

Want to rapidly improve your design eye? Clone three apps from different categories.

Day 1-2: A content app Clone something like Medium, Twitter, or Reddit. Focus on how they handle text content and navigation.

Day 3-4: A utility app Clone something like a weather app, calculator, or timer. Focus on information display and quick interactions.

Day 5-6: A commerce app Clone something like Amazon, Airbnb, or DoorDash. Focus on product display and purchase flows.

Day 7: Reflect What did you learn? What patterns appeared across all three? What made each category different?

By the end of the week, you'll have internalized design patterns that took the original teams months to develop. For step-by-step tutorials recreating specific apps like Instagram, Uber, and Airbnb, see our famous app recreation guide.

Using GenDesigns for cloning

GenDesigns works well for this because it understands references. Some prompt patterns that help:

Direct reference:

Create an app that looks like [App Name]

Style reference:

Use [App Name]'s design language for a different purpose

Hybrid reference:

Combine [App A]'s navigation with [App B]'s content layout

Aesthetic reference:

Match the premium, minimal feel of [App Name] but for [different category]

The AI has seen enough apps to understand these references and generate appropriate designs.

The bigger picture

Every great designer has studied other designs. Looking at what works, understanding why, and incorporating those lessons into your own work—that's how the craft evolves.

AI makes this process faster. You can explore more variations, test more hypotheses, and learn more patterns in less time.

Clone to learn. Then create something new.

Ready to clone your first app? Try GenDesigns' Clone UI Design feature — paste an App Store URL or describe any app to get started. Want to learn the full design process? Read our complete guide to designing mobile apps with AI or explore famous app recreation tutorials.

Related reading:

• Learn UI Design by Cloning Apps - Educational approach to cloning
• Recreate Famous App Designs with AI - Step-by-step recreation guide
• 50+ AI Design Prompts That Actually Work - Master prompt writing