Figma will expand from a UI/UX design tool into a "full-stack creation platform" that handles ideation, design, and product implementation in one workspace, the company said at a press briefing in Seoul on July 14. The move is a direct response to an AI-driven market where anyone can build a digital product, making differentiation and team collaboration the new bottleneck.
AI reshapes product creation, but fragments teamwork
Figma Chief Product Officer Yuki Yamashita, who presented the strategy after the company's Config 2026 conference in San Francisco, said AI is rewriting the creative environment. "Even people without professional skills can create a variety of digital content, such as apps and videos," he said. A Figma survey found that 76% of product developers in Korea said AI had significantly affected their work over the past year. The boundary between design and development is blurring - designers' participation in development nearly doubled in the same period.
But Yamashita warned that easier app creation has made standing out harder. "It has become easier to build apps with AI, but differentiation that draws users' attention has become even harder," he said. His bigger concern is workflow fragmentation. Teams are building powerful prototypes with AI agents but not sharing them effectively. "As prototypes and feedback are scattered across multiple tools, we are seeing collaboration become disconnected," he said.
Code layers bridge design and development
The centerpiece of Figma's response is code layers, a feature that treats code as a canvas layer alongside visual design elements. Developers and designers can modify and apply code-based prototypes without switching tools. "It is no longer important to distinguish where to start, between design and code," Yamashita said. "Code is a highly expressive material for building digital products, and now you can design using code."
Motion, 3D transforms, and shader capabilities are also built directly into the platform. Users can create animations and visual effects without separate programs, then connect them to real code. New motion and shader effects can be generated and edited with AI prompts. The platform further integrates the AI technology from Wv, a startup Figma acquired last year, letting teams chain multiple generative AI models and control image and video generation step by step for finer editing.
Figma's financial stakes amid AI disruption
Figma, a U.S. software company founded in 2012, built its reputation on web-based UI/UX design and prototyping tools that let designers, developers, and planners work together in a single workspace. After Adobe's $20 billion acquisition attempt fell through in 2023, Figma chose to remain independent and pursue an IPO. First-quarter revenue this year hit $333.4 million, up 46% from a year earlier. But the stock fell roughly 44% in the first half of the year, as investors worried that AI-based design tools could erode the company's competitive position.
Yamashita framed collaboration as the counterweight to that threat. "Figma has noted that collaboration is the most important competitive edge in the AI era," he 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."
Why this matters for product development
For product teams, the announcement signals a shift in how prototypes get built. Code layers mean developers can iterate on production-ready code inside the same canvas where designers work, reducing handoff delays. The integration of motion, 3D, and AI generation compresses the toolchain further. But the core bet is on process, not just features: when AI makes basic app creation trivial, the teams that win will be those that keep design, code, and feedback connected in one shared space. That requires rethinking workflows so that collaboration isn't an afterthought but the default operating mode.
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