Figma unveils major redesign and prompt-to-design AI

For years, opening Figma meant staring into a blank gray canvas. Now, you can just ask it for an app, and it will draw the screens for you.

At its Config conference, Figma introduced its third major redesign since its early beta days. Framing it as the foundation for its next decade, the company rolled out a floating toolbar, rounded corners, and 200 new icons to minimize interface clutter. Alongside the visual refresh came two major additions: Figma AI, a full suite of prompt-driven design tools, and Figma Slides, a native presentation maker built right inside the canvas.

This is Figma’s first Config since Adobe called off its $20 billion buyout attempt under regulatory scrutiny and paid a $1 billion breakup fee. Free from acquisition limbo, Figma clearly wants to show it can define the future of design software on its own terms.

From text prompt to interactive prototype

The marquee update is Figma AI. Chief product officer Yuhki Yamashita described the strategy as using AI to "lower the floor and raise the ceiling."

In live demos, Yamashita typed a simple prompt asking for an app for a new restaurant. Seconds later, Figma produced a multi-screen mobile mockup complete with organized menus, tab bars, and order buttons wired for Uber Eats and DoorDash.

Instead of dumping generic Latin placeholder text onto shapes, the system populates mockups with realistic copy and generated imagery. When tasked with a cookie recipe page, it generated layout, ingredient lists, and an image of a chocolate chip cookie ready for immediate editing.

The AI toolkit also tackles mundane design chores: bulk layer renaming, one-click background removal, automatic translation, and semantic asset search that finds components by meaning. Figma's subprocessor disclosures confirm these generative capabilities rely on third-party models from partners like OpenAI and Jasper.

Meanwhile, Figma Slides targets another designer headache. Users have spent years hacking together presentation decks inside Figma canvas files. Figma Slides formalizes this into a native tool: you can edit components in real time without breaking layouts, embed functioning interactive prototypes directly on slides without recording screen captures, and poll live audiences during design reviews.

The fine print: your files might train the engine

Figma AI is currently rolling out in a waitlist-based limited beta, remaining free to try through the end of the year before shifting to paid tiers. Figma Slides is in open beta and will also eventually become a paid feature.

Yet the launch brought immediate pushback around privacy and data training policies.

CTO Kris Rasmussen explained that current out-of-the-box features rely on third-party providers and were not trained on customer design files. However, starting August 15, Figma intends to train its own proprietary models on customer content, encompassing layer names, properties, text, images, annotations, and comments.

The friction comes down to default settings. Enterprise and Organization tiers are automatically opted out of data training. Starter and paying Professional users, however, are opted in by default.

While admins can manually flip a toggle in their team settings to opt out without losing access to AI features, putting the burden on individuals and paying Professional teams echoes the recent terms-of-service uproar at Adobe.

Why it matters

For product managers, startup founders, and junior developers, Figma AI fundamentally changes how quickly concepts take shape. You no longer need polished wireframing chops to produce a credible, interactive design demo for a team sync. For seasoned UI designers, skipping repetitive layer cleanup and finding assets by intent should shave hours off daily delivery cycles.

Across the industry, Figma is shifting from a collaborative canvas into an end-to-end product workflow ecosystem. By packaging native slides and generative layout into the core subscription, Figma is pushing back against standalone presentation tools and defending its territory against emerging AI-native rivals.

We think integrating generative output directly into native editable layers was a brilliant product decision—it feels like real design work rather than a disconnected chatbot pasted onto a side panel. Figma Slides also brilliantly capitalizes on existing user habits.

However, Figma's data policy choices are disappointing. Forcing paying Professional tiers to opt out manually to keep their intellectual property out of training pipelines is tone-deaf, especially right after Adobe took massive heat for similar ambiguity. If your team handles sensitive client assets on a Professional seat, we recommend checking your admin toggles before August 15.