Global design software corporations Figma declared its evolution into a "full-stack creation platform" that performs everything in one space, from ideation to design to product implementation, beyond UI/UX design tools. As AI ushers in an era when anyone can easily create digital products, the strategy is to combine human creativity with team collaboration to support differentiated product development.
On the 14th, Figma held a press briefing at the Conrad Hotel in Yeouido, Seoul, and introduced this strategy. At the event, Chief Product Officer (CPO) Yuki Yamashita attended and directly explained the key announcements and next-generation features from the annual conference "Config 2026," held in June in San Francisco.
CPO Yamashita said, "AI is changing the creative environment itself," and noted, "Now, even people without professional skills can create a variety of digital content, such as apps and videos." In fact, according to Figma's survey, 76% of product developers in Korea said AI had significantly affected their work over the past year. As developers participate in design and designers participate in development, the boundary between the two roles is also breaking down. In particular, designers' participation in development nearly doubled in one year.
However, Yamashita pointed out that as AI spreads, product differentiation is becoming more difficult and workflows are becoming fragmented. CPO Yamashita said, "It has become easier to build apps with AI, but differentiation that draws users' attention has become even harder." He added, "People converse with their respective AI agents and create powerful prototypes, but they do not sufficiently share them with their teams," and explained, "As prototypes and feedback are scattered across multiple tools, we are seeing collaboration become disconnected."
Figma introduced "code layers" as a core feature to solve these problems. Whereas code and design were previously managed in separate tools, going forward, code itself can be handled like a layer on the canvas within the Figma platform. It increases continuity so developers and designers can freely modify and apply code-based product prototypes.
CPO Yamashita said, "It is no longer important to distinguish where to start, between design and code," and added, "Code is a highly expressive material for building digital products, and now you can design using code."
Figma has integrated not only code but also motion, 3D transforms, and shader features into the platform. Users can create animations and visual effects without separate programs and connect them to real code, and can generate and edit new motion and shader effects with AI prompts alone. It also incorporated the AI technology of "Wv," acquired last year, into the platform. By linking multiple Generative AI models, users can design and control image and video generation processes step by step, allowing for more fine-grained editing of AI-generated results.
CPO Yamashita emphasized, "Figma has noted that collaboration is the most important competitive edge in the AI era," and said, "Through an environment where teams can work together on a single canvas—from ideas to code to AI agents—we will help teams create more creative and differentiated products."
Figma is a U.S. software corporations that provides web-based UI/UX design and prototyping collaboration tools. Its hallmark is that not only designers but also developers and planners can work together on design and code in a single workspace. Founded in 2012 in Silicon Valley, it has grown rapidly, and in 2023 it drew attention with Adobe's $20 billion acquisition attempt, but after the deal fell through, it chose to go it alone and pursued an initial public offering (IPO).
Figma's first-quarter revenue this year was $333.4 million, up 46% from a year earlier, but concerns that the rise of AI-based design tools could weaken the competitiveness of existing design software grew, and its stock price fell about 44% in the first half of the year.