AI-Powered Web Creation Heats Up: Figma Takes on Adobe and Canva

By Jim Lundy

 

AI-Powered Web Creation Heats Up: Figma Takes on Adobe and Canva

The world of digital product development continues to evolve rapidly, with tools constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and who can participate in the creation process. A significant announcement from Figma’s Config 2025 event signals a bold expansion, potentially reshaping how teams move from initial concept to launched product, especially on the web.

On May 7, 2025, Figma unveiled a suite of new offerings, extending its platform beyond its core design and whiteboarding capabilities. Central to the announcement were “Figma Sites” and “Figma Make,” alongside enhanced AI features and deeper design tools. This blog examines these new capabilities and offers our analysis on their potential impact on the technology landscape.

Why is Figma Expanding into Website Building and AI Code Generation?

Figma’s announcements at Config 2025 reveal a strategic move to capture more of the digital product development lifecycle. The introduction of Figma Sites allows designers to build and publish dynamic websites directly within the familiar Figma environment. This capability moves beyond static mockups and prototypes into creating live, interactive web experiences, powered by code and AI for customization. Complementing this is Figma Make, an AI-powered tool designed to translate written prompts or existing designs into working prototypes or application code. This aims to significantly accelerate the transition from design concept to functional output.

These new offerings, coupled with enhanced AI features for image generation, workflow suggestions, and brainstorming (in FigJam), signal Figma’s intent to become a more comprehensive platform. By integrating capabilities traditionally found in separate development or specialized website building tools, Figma seeks to streamline workflows, enhance collaboration between design and engineering teams, and lower the technical barrier for creating functional web experiences. The goal, as articulated by the company, is to enable more individuals to contribute meaningfully to the product development process, accelerating the journey from idea to production.

Analysis

Figma’s strategic expansion is a direct challenge to established players and traditional workflows in the web creation space. For years, Figma has dominated the collaborative interface design market, often serving as the critical handoff point between designers and developers. With Figma Sites and Figma Make, the company is blurring the lines, potentially allowing designers to bypass some traditional front-end development steps or significantly reduce the iteration cycles.

Challenging Adobe and Canva

Comparing Figma’s new capabilities with competitors reveals distinct approaches. While Canva offers user-friendly website building, Figma Sites appears aimed at more sophisticated, dynamic sites, leveraging Figma’s strength in detailed design and complex interactions. Adobe, a long-time player in creative tools, has various offerings for web (like Adobe XD for design and aspects of Creative Cloud for assets), but Figma’s integration of AI-powered design-to-code and direct site publishing within its collaborative platform presents a potentially more unified workflow than Adobe’s often suite-based approach. Adobe’s AI, Firefly, is powerful for generative art, but Make focuses specifically on generating functional code from design.

Taking on Microsoft Github Copilot

Against companies primarily focused on the development side, like Google’s developer tools or Microsoft/GitHub’s ecosystem (including GitHub Copilot), Figma is approaching the problem from the design side. GitHub Copilot assists developers writing code, while Figma Make aims to generate code from a design context, integrated directly into the design tool. This could significantly impact the design-to-dev handoff process, potentially shifting responsibilities or requiring new collaboration models.

The move into prompt-to-app and website publishing positions Figma to capture more value in the software development lifecycle. It capitalizes on Figma’s existing strength in real-time collaboration and its extensive user base that includes a growing percentage of non-designers. The localization efforts also underscore a global ambition, recognizing that design and development workflows are becoming increasingly distributed.

What Should Enterprises Do?

Figma’s latest announcements warrant serious attention from enterprises, particularly those involved in digital product development and marketing. The introduction of Figma Sites and Make has the potential to alter existing toolchains and workflows. Enterprises should:

1. Assess Current Workflows: Evaluate your current design, prototyping, and web development processes. Identify bottlenecks and areas where the handoff between design and development could be more efficient.
2. Explore New Capabilities: Pilot Figma Sites and Figma Make for specific projects. Understand their strengths and limitations in generating production-ready code and hosting dynamic websites compared to your existing stack (e.g., traditional CMS platforms, static site generators, or custom development frameworks).
3. Re-evaluate Tooling Strategy: Consider how these new Figma offerings fit into your broader tooling strategy. Can they replace existing tools? Do they require new training for teams? How do they integrate with your existing development environments and deployment pipelines? This may necessitate a re-evaluation of your design and development stack in light of Figma’s expanded capabilities and the competitive landscape.

Bottom Line

Figma’s Config 2025 announcements, particularly Figma Sites and Figma Make, represent a significant push to extend its platform deeper into the product development lifecycle. By enabling designers to build and publish dynamic websites and leveraging AI for design-to-code generation, Figma is directly challenging traditional boundaries between design and development tools and competing more directly with website builders and developer-focused AI tools.

This move has the potential to streamline workflows and empower a broader set of users. Enterprises must actively evaluate these new capabilities to understand their impact on existing processes, assess their potential to enhance efficiency, and determine how they fit into their future digital creation strategy.

 

 

 

 

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