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- Figma's CEO said his company's tools will not do the work of a top-notch designer.Dylan Field said that Figma's AI tools "raise the ceiling" for designers to do more.He said they would remove the "drudgery" of the design process.
Figma's CEO said the design company won't do the job of a world-class designer.
Dylan Field, Figma's 33-year-old billionaire chief executive, appeared on a Wednesday Rapid Response podcast. He talked to host Bob Safian about how his company's tools won't replace a designer's work but will help remove the "drudgery" of the design process.
Figma, a San Francisco-based technology company, offers design tools for creating websites, apps, and other digital products.
Field said Figma's AI tools both "lower the floor" to bring more people into the design process, and "raise the ceiling" for designers to be able to do more.
"Ultimately, all of us humans, we expect more from AI than we expect from a human. You know, if you say, 'Okay, here's a small prompt to change my spacing in a file,' Figma better get it right," Field said to Safian.
He said that if an AI can't even execute a minor command, people will dismiss its capabilities.
"I'm not saying that we have to do the work of a world-class designer, because we won't," Field said. "There's a need for designers to lead the charge, and AI will only get you so far."
"But the drudgery, how do we remove that from the design process? How do we give more access to more people?" he added.
Figma had a blockbuster IPO in July, with its shares opening at triple their asking price. The company raised $1.2 billion during the offering.
The company celebrated by holding a block party in front of the New York Stock Exchange, complete with free pizza, merch, and a DJ.
In response to a request for comment, a Figma representative directed Business Insider to a September study by Andrew Hogan, Figma's head of insights.
The study, which Field cited in the podcast, surveyed about 1,200 participants, including designers, product managers, developers, researchers, data specialists, and marketers. It wrote that 53% of the people surveyed said that even with AI, deep knowledge of a subject is necessary to do a task well.
Canva's cofounder, Cliff Obrecht, shared similar sentiments earlier this year about how AI would affect designers.
Speaking in a July episode of the "Masters of Scale" podcast, Obrecht said Canva's tools free designers' time for "high-value work," and not embracing AI as a creative was "folly."
