Figma sees design as key differentiator as AI lowers coding barriers: CEO Dylan Field

As AI makes coding faster and lowers the barriers to building software, the value in technology development will increasingly shift towards design, where understanding users, business needs and cultural context will remain critical, Figma CEO and cofounder Dylan Field said.Field, who is visiting India for the first time, said the country’s pragmatic approach to technology adoption stood out compared with San Francisco, where experimentation often generates considerable noise. Indian companies were focused on identifying what would advance their businesses and deliver tangible returns, he said.“Some people here might already be ahead of people in San Francisco. There is a lot of noise there, with people trying a lot of things. Some of those things are great. They will be the future. But there is also a lot of noise that does not work out,” Field said.AI’s ability to perform tasks with verifiable outcomes, such as mathematics, cybersecurity and coding, is advancing rapidly. But designing systems that are maintainable, extensible and aligned with business needs remains more complex, he said. Design involves multiple possible solutions, requiring an understanding of users, culture, business problems and aesthetics.“Design is this combinatorial explosion of options where there is no one right answer,” Field said. “You are trying to connect to the culture, business problems and users. You need to have great empathy. These are not things AI is amazing at.” In 2022, Adobe announced plans to acquire Figma in a $20 billion cash-and-stock deal. However, the proposed acquisition collapsed in December 2023 amid regulatory hurdles.AI-generated content can also struggle to stand out because it often resembles existing work, potentially undermining trust, he said. Products that attract users are those that demonstrate craft, care and intention. Rather than replacing human creativity, AI can provide an initial output that designers refine to reflect their own thinking.Field said this shift would not make engineers redundant. Figma continues to hire engineers who can think through systems rather than merely use AI tools. As AI gets better at translating designs into code, the development process can focus more on exploring alternatives and deciding what to build, rather than only how to build it.Figma is developing tools that allow users to move between design and code on the same canvas, bringing in context from coding agents and specifications. Its Model Context Protocol (MCP) also allows users to take design context into external tools to accelerate development.The company is expanding its India operations, which began about a year ago with go-to-market, sales and customer-support functions. It is now adding designer and developer advocates, with product and engineering potentially following as the team grows.India is a priority market for Figma, with its second-largest daily active user base, Field said. However, supporting customers remains the immediate focus.Figma is also seeking to improve the efficiency of AI-assisted development. Its Code Connect tool maps design systems to components and tokens in code, reducing the need for AI models to search for matching elements. Field said this saves customers 25-33% in token costs.Figma unveiled AI-powered features at Config India in Bengaluru to help design, product and engineering teams collaborate on a shared canvas, build code-backed prototypes and develop websites using real data.The updates include Code Layers for creating and editing prototypes on the design canvas, Figma Specs for aligning teams on product requirements and guiding AI agents, and Payload for building data-backed websites and internal tools.“Customers often tell us they prefer working together with their teams on the canvas rather than alone with coding agents in a terminal or IDE,” Field said. Code Layers is launching in open beta.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.