As concerns grow that artificial intelligence (AI) will encroach on the software industry and major software corporations' shares weaken, some corporations aggressively using AI are delivering better-than-expected results and reviving investor sentiment, analysts said. Design software corporations such as Figma and Canva secured new customers last year by developing and embedding AI-based collaborative design tools that users can easily apply to their work on AI platforms like ChatGPT and Claude.
The market expects that as some corporations seek differentiation powered by AI and get on a growth track, a full-fledged "sorting the wheat from the chaff" within the software industry will begin.
Figma, considered a rival to Adobe, famous for Photoshop, surged more than 15% in after-hours trading on the 18th after its earnings release. The jump reflected fourth-quarter results that beat Wall Street expectations. Figma said fourth-quarter revenue last year rose 40% from a year earlier to $303.8 million (about 440 billion won), a record high for a quarter.
Operating loss turned negative on a non-GAAP basis at $195.5 million (about 280 billion won). The company said that was because stock-based compensation was reflected after the initial public offering (IPO) in July last year and because it increased AI-related investment.
Analysts said shares rose on expectations that Figma's AI strategy will come into full force this year. Figma's annual revenue last year was $1.056 billion (about 1.53 trillion won), up 41% from the previous year, and the company guided this year's revenue to $1.37 billion, about 30% higher.
Figma said last year's revenue improved on the back of growth in its generative AI tool Figma Make, which creates draft designs for app or webpage screens when a user enters a one-line prompt (command). As of the fourth quarter last year, weekly users of Figma Make increased 70% from the previous quarter, and more than half of the 1,400-plus customers who spend $100,000 (about 145 million won) or more annually on Figma's core design software used Figma Make every week.
The market also noted that net dollar retention (NDR), an indicator showing existing customers' expenditure trends, was 136%, up 5 percentage points from 131% a year earlier. When NDR exceeds 100%, it means existing customers increased their expenditure on Figma's software and design tools compared with a year earlier.
Figma CEO Dylan Field said on the earnings conference call, "In 2025, we increased the number of products from four to eight and launched more than 200 tools, including AI-native features," adding, "The steep revenue and customer growth in the fourth quarter shows the importance of design and Figma's essential position in the product development process."
Australian design platform Canva saw users rise more than 20% last year as inflows through major AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Claude increased. As of the end of last year, Canva had 265 million monthly active users (MAU), including 31 million paid subscribers. With more users, Canva's annual recurring revenue (ARR) reached $4 billion (about 5.8 trillion won), co-founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Cliff Obrecht said at the Web Summit Qatar tech conference in Doha, Qatar, the previous day. That was up more than 40% from a year earlier.
Obrecht, the COO, said the spread of Generative AI tools contributed to growth. In April last year, Canva launched the AI tool "Canva Code," which can generate mini apps and websites with simple prompts, and users of this tool recently surpassed 10 million a month. The company also actively pursued integration with popular AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude. Canva said that by October last year, user conversations via the Canva app inside ChatGPT topped 26 million. It also ranked among the top 10 sites by ChatGPT inflow, meaning many users move to the Canva site through ChatGPT.
Obrecht, the COO, said, "Whereas previously we added various AI tools to the Canva platform, now we are flipping that to stack various design tools on AI platforms," calling it "a cursor-like concept for design." He added, "Early growth at Canva came through Google search, but now large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have emerged as major customer acquisition channels."
The two companies are not stopping at providing simple AI-based design tools; they are seeking differentiation by shifting to product development platforms. The focus is on allowing users to easily create designs using Figma or Canva collaboration tools based on ChatGPT and Claude and then naturally connecting that to actual work and product development workflows.
Thanks to the solid performance of Figma and Canva, the "software doomsday theory" that flared up on Wall Street has eased slightly but not completely. After U.S. AI corporation Anthropic released the AI agent (assistant) "Claude CoWork" last month, fear that advanced AI will replace software as a service (SaaS) swept the market, sending software corporations' shares tumbling. From traditional software powerhouses like Salesforce, Inc., Adobe, and Workday to security corporations, shares have remained weak compared with the start of the year. Palo Alto Networks, the world's largest security corporation, fell 7% on the 18th on assessments that this year's revenue and operating income guidance fell short of market expectations despite solid results last year.
Tech corporate chiefs are also divided over the long-term impact AI will have on the software industry.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Arm CEO Rene Haas said concerns about replacement are overblown and forecast that software usage will increase along with the expansion of AI agent use. Figma CEO Dylan Field also said, "Software will not disappear; it will grow as demand increases." By contrast, leaders at AI corporations predicted that AI assistants, which perform multistep tasks on their own, will encroach on a significant portion of software work. Arthur Mensch, CEO of French AI corporation Mistral, said, "Half of the software as a service (SaaS) currently used by major corporations will be replaced by AI."