Figma pauses the 'Make Design' feature just a week after its launch

Last week at its Config Conference, Figma launched a suite of AI-powered tools, including the 'Make Designs' feature, in a limited beta phase. 'Make Designs' is advertised as Figma's solution to the blank canvas problem of being faced with an empty file without knowing where to start. Figma's proposed solution was to allow users to describe UI layouts and component options in a text prompt so the AI could provide them with a workable first draft as a starting point.

The issue with the feature was raised some days ago, after NotBoring Software founder Andy Allen cleverly prompted Make Designs for a "not boring weather app". NotBoring is the maker of skinnable interactive apps for boring routines including a popular weather app, so it makes sense that a "not boring weather app" was Allen's starting point when experimenting with the feature. Fortunately for Allen and NotBoring Software, the generated draft looked nothing like its weather app offering, but unfortunately for Figma, it did look nearly identical to Apple's Weather app.

Allen took his findings to X, explaining that three generation attempts had resulted in the same drafts and exposing his belief that the Figma AI must have been heavily trained on existing apps. Figma CEO Dylan Field then cited Allen's post to explain that the Make Designs feature was not trained on Figma content, community files, or app designs. In its current stage, Figma AI is powered by third-party LLMs and commissioned design systems that these models leverage to generate their outputs. Figma is starting a program to incorporate users' data into in-house model training to develop custom models to power AI features.

Meanwhile, Field has attributed the Make Designs feature behavior to low variability and an insistence on treating the Config Conference launch as a hard deadline. Moreover, according to Dylan's post, Figma has turned Make Designs off until a full QA pass is done on the underlying design system; the feature will only be re-enabled when its outputs are up to the company's standard.