Figma on Wednesday showed off an update that adds new code layers, motion and shader support, and the ability to create custom plugins for a variety of AI-powered tasks.
Design platforms have been working on integrating code into their tools for some time. Last year, the company introduced Figma Make, an AI prompt-based prototyping tool, and has since started integrating with Claude Code and Codex to improve the handoff between coding and design.
The company is now adding code layers directly to the collaborative canvas, helping teams clone repositories and extract flows from code to design layers for testing.
Hiroki Yamashita, chief product officer at Figma, said code layers make it easier for designers, product managers, and programmers to iterate on ideas instead of focusing on writing pure code that goes into production.
“We think the multiplayer canvas is very powerful because it’s an environment where you don’t really care about the quality of your code. If you’re exploring rapidly or need to explore a series of new directions, you can do it in this spatial way. We hope this feature creates different behaviors not only for designers, but also for engineers and PMs,” he said on the phone.
Figma now also supports animations, transitions, and 3D transformations. Previously, designers had to create animations in other software and translate them into code that the app could understand. Designers can now integrate animations and transitions directly into Figma.
You can now create some of these assets using AI, and the update also adds support for adding shader effects and fills using AI.
Last year, Figma acquired node-based tool Weavy. It helps designers run workflows through different models and compare the output, and we’re currently working on better integrating the two apps. An update rolling out later this year will allow users to generate Weavy workflows directly within Figma.
The company is also adding new skills to make AI assistants more useful in Collaborative Canvas. Users can now create text prompts to create repeatable skills that can be used by AI agents. You can also connect to tools like Notion, Granola, Excel, and GitHub, and attach files to provide more context about what you want the AI bot to do.
The company is also adding features that allow users to create custom plugins such as layout generators and vector path tracers with prompts.
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