Figma, the darling of the design world, just got a whole lot smarter. At ConFig 2024, the company unveiled its long-awaited AI features, proving that even the coolest kid in school eventually has to do their homework.
Let’s be real: we all saw this coming. With every design tool from Photoshop to MS Paint (okay, maybe not Paint) embracing AI, Figma was starting to look like the holdout at a robot dance party. But no more.
Figma AI is rolling out in beta, and it’s bringing the usual AI suspects to the table. Want to generate a mobile UI with a text prompt? Check. Need to find that one design you swear you made last month? Visual search has got you covered. Tired of manually renaming layers? AI’s on it.
But here’s where it gets interesting: Figma’s not just slapping an AI label on some basic features. They’re diving deep into the design process with AI prototyping, promising to turn your wireframes into working prototypes faster than you can say “iterative design.”
Dylan Field, Figma’s co-founder and CEO, is pitching this as a democratization of design. “In a world where more software is being created and reimagined because of AI, designing and building products is everyone’s business,” he says. Translation: “Please don’t replace us with ChatGPT.”
But wait, there’s more! Figma’s also launching Figma Slides, because apparently, 3.5 million people were using Figma to make presentations last year. (Who knew?) It’s got AI tools for tone, style, and imagery, because heaven forbid we design our own slides anymore.
The real question is: will Figma’s AI be good enough to design its own UI? Because if it can, we might all be out of a job. Until then, designers can look forward to arguing with their AI assistants about kerning and color palettes. Welcome to the future, Figma users. It’s just like the past, but with more buzzwords.
