Figma used its Config event in San Francisco to push a clear message about AI: the biggest gains may come from helping teams work together, not just from building tools for individuals.
At the company’s Wednesday presentation, Figma introduced a set of new products and features designed to make design, development and AI workflows feel more connected inside its platform. The announcements reflect Figma’s broader goal of turning its software into a fuller design system that can support collaboration from early concepts through production.
Chief executive Dylan Field said in a media briefing that design is becoming a more important differentiator for companies. He suggested that the next wave of product development will involve stronger visual choices and more willingness to take creative risks. Figma chief design officer Loredana Crisan framed the company’s approach as one centered on expanding what designers can do with new tools, rather than replacing them.
One of the main additions is Code Layers, a feature Figma says will let teams work more directly with code repositories. The tool is intended to help users generate new directions with AI and keep design changes in sync with production code without leaving the Figma environment.
That approach reflects a long-running challenge in product teams, where design work and engineering implementation often move on separate tracks. Figma is positioning its software as a place where those gaps can be narrowed.
The company also introduced Motion and Shader tools, which are meant to bring more advanced visual work into the platform. Those features allow teams to build animations, 3D effects and other visual treatments inside Figma, with the goal of moving beyond static prototypes toward experiences that more closely resemble final products.
Another major announcement was Figma Weave, which the company described as a way to bring more than 20 AI tools into its design surface. The idea is to turn complex AI steps into reusable building blocks that teams can apply across projects.
Figma is also expanding agent-related features, including agent skills, deeper context and generative plugins. Those tools are aimed at automating repetitive work, helping teams build custom tools and making it easier to share AI capabilities across an organization.
The company’s message was that AI should sit inside existing creative and development workflows, rather than operate as a separate layer that users have to manage on their own.
Despite the broad expansion of AI features, Figma said it does not expect artificial intelligence to produce the kinds of creative breakthroughs that set companies apart, at least not in the near term. Field said those differentiating ideas are still likely to come from people.
That stance fits Figma’s wider framing of AI as an assistive technology for collaborative work. The company is not presenting AI as a substitute for designers, but as a set of tools that can help them move faster, experiment more and bring ideas into production with fewer handoffs.
The timing of the launch also matters. Figma has become a widely used design platform across large enterprises, and its new features suggest it sees a growing market for tools that combine design, development and AI in one environment.
For now, Figma’s bet is that the next frontier for AI in the workplace is not individual productivity alone. It is shared creative work, built around teams that need to design, iterate and ship products together.