Escaping AI’s MS DOS Era: Dylan Field (Figma) at CVAI London

Dylan Field, founder of the design platform Figma, said the company is pedal-to-the-metal on product as it looks to seize a unique moment where AI is driving an innovation explosion and there’s “so much to build, so many workflows changing, so much happening.” Figma launched four new products last month, following the philosophy of what Field described as “pull out a use case and make it a product.” Among them is Figma Make, a no-code AI tool that Field is especially excited about and will more people engage with design, and start to bring the tools out of the text-prompt era. “Designers, product managers, developers, their roles are converging, and everyone is more generalist anyway,” he said. “For most software, design, craft, taste, and point of view is the differentiator. The more people realize that, the more they want to lean into it. Design is where you win or lose.” Rather than displacing designers, he said, this puts them at the center of the process. “We’re going to see a lot more designers in leadership roles, more designers in CEO roles,” he said. Field said about 30% of Figma users are designers, 30% are developers, and the rest are in various functions. Field said the challenge is to stay on top of the needs of its various categories of users, but was optimistic that this would all lead to more, better applications in the long run. Even if AI development froze today, he said, there’s be amazing innovation for years to come. “More toys for everyone,” he concluded.