Figma AI: Boosting Creativity or Exploiting Designers?

2 min read | published October 28, 2024

Figma AI planning to analyze our intellectual property is like that uncreative, soulless, self-proclaimed designer who’s just in it for the quick buck.

That person who rips off other people’s work and swiftly slaps their name on it. I mean imagine yourself putting years and years of effort into becoming a great designer and acquiring exquisite taste. Then one day, after lots of trial and error, you happen to come up with a new design trend that has the potential to bring you many new opportunities and a well-deserved competitive advantage.

One example of this would be @mds who invented the float label and also was one of the speakers at figmas config2024 conference. It gained widespread attention and led to new opportunities.

But here’s Figma’s AI that will just take it, remove your name from it and then hand it out to the millions of designers to freely use for themselves. It reminds me of the term “cultural appropriation”. Maybe in this case it would be right to call it creative appropriation?

Figma has earned its trust from many industry leading design experts, because they delivered something truly unique.

When Figma was released it stood out because it was nothing like Photoshop or other contemporary design tools.

This innovation was the result of years of trial and error using Photoshop and other design tools to understand the inefficiencies of the design processes. Then going back to the drawing board and coming up with something thoughtful, unique and intuitive that was specifically crafted for UI design.

This has gained them a well-deserved competitive advantage over Adobe, who, recognizing Figma’s success, attempted to replicate it with Adobe XD and later sought to acquire it, only to be thwarted by anti-competitive regulations!

Now Figma, imagine Adobe analyzing your intellectual property when you were in the process of inventing Figma, learning from it and then just handing out your insights to millions of potential competitors, including themselves. And then having them tell you that this is just in your own best interest because you are the one who needs to be more creative. Would you embrace a feature like that?