Figma announces major AI redesign

Figma announced a slew of fresh features today at its Config conference, including a significant UI overhaul, fresh generative AI tools designed to make it easier for people to create designs, and a built-in slideshow feature.

Let’s start with a redesign that is set to “lay the foundation for the next decade” according to the blog post. You’ll see things like a fresh toolbar, rounded corners, and 200 fresh icons. As part of the design refresh, the company wants to “focus less on our user interface and more on your work” and create something that is accessible to fresh users while still being useful to Figma experts.

Figma says this is the company’s third “significant redesign” since the launch of Figma’s closed beta. The fresh look is being rolled out as a circumscribed beta, and users can sign up for a waitlist if they want to try it out.

In addition to the fresh design, the main added feature is fresh generative AI tools, which look like a useful way to get started designing quickly. These are essentially Figma-centric versions of the “sketch email” AI tools we’ve seen many times.

During a briefing, Figma’s product director, Yuhki Yamashita, showed me an example of how Figma could create an app design for a fresh restaurant. A few seconds after typing a prompt into a text field, Figma created a fictional app with menu lists, a tab bar, and even buttons for delivery services like Uber Eats and DoorDash. It looked like a basic mockup of a mobile app, but Yamashita could immediately start improving it.

In another example, Yamashita asked Figma AI to create a design for a chocolate chip cookie recipe page, and it did – complete with an AI-generated image of the cookie. In Zoom mode, it looked like a fairly correct image, but I can’t imagine that a basic image of a chocolate chip cookie would be complex for the AI ​​generator to produce.

Figma also introduces AI features that can significantly speed up miniature tasks, such as “AI-powered” asset searches and automatically generated text in designs instead of generic Lorem ipsum placeholder text.

Ideally, Yamashita says, all of Figma’s fresh AI tools will allow people who are fresh to Figma to test ideas more easily, while allowing those who are more familiar with the app to iterate more quickly on the app. “We’re using AI to lower the floor and raise the ceiling,” Yamashita tells Edge – something CEO Dylan Field said Edge also.

Figma AI will launch in circumscribed beta starting Wednesday, and interested users can sign up for a waitlist. Figma says the beta period will last until the end of the year. During the beta, Figma’s AI tools will be free, but the company says it may have to introduce “usage limits.” Figma also promises “clear pricing guidance” when the AI ​​features officially launch.

In a blog post, Figma also outlined its approach to training AI models. “All of the generative features we’re launching today use third-party AI models that are already built and have not been trained on private Figma files or customer data.” writes Kris Rasmussen, CTO of Figma. “We’ve improved visual search and assets by using user interface images from public, free community files.”

Rasmussen adds that Figma trains its models to learn patterns and “Figma-specific concepts and tools,” but not from user content. Figma will also allow Figma administrators to control whether Figma can train on “client content,” which includes “file content created in or uploaded to Figma by the user, such as layer names and properties, text and images, comments and annotations, according to Rasmussen.

Figma won’t begin training for this content until August 15; however, you should be aware that the Starter and Professional plans have this data sharing enabled by default, while the Organization and Enterprise plans have it disabled.

The company likely went into detail about how it trains its AI models due to the recent Adobe terms of service disaster, in which the company had to clarify that it wouldn’t train AI on your work.

In addition to the redesign and new AI features, Figma is adding a potentially very practical new tool: Figma Slidesa Google Slides-like feature built right into Figma. Yamashita says users were already hacking Figma to find ways to create slides, so now there’s an official way to create and share presentations right within the app.

There are a few Figma-specific features that designers will likely appreciate. You’ll be able to modify the designs you’ve placed in your deck in real time using Figma’s tools. (Keep in mind that these changes will only appear on board — patches are not currently synced to the original project files, although Yamashita says Figma wants to enable this eventually.)

You can also demo your app prototype right from the deck, which means you don’t have to create an intricate screen recording to demonstrate how one element connects to another. You can also add interactive features for audience members, such as a poll or alignment scale, where people can plot a range if they agree or disagree with something.

Figma Slides will be available in open beta starting Wednesday. It will be free in beta but will become a paid feature once it officially launches. The company is also adding new features to its developer mode in Figmaincluding a list of “development-ready” tasks.

This year’s Config is the first since Adobe abandoned its planned $20 billion acquisition of Figma amid regulatory scrutiny. With the unraveling of the merger, Adobe was forced to pay Figma a $1 billion breakup fee.