Figma just integrated Google’s Gemini AI directly into its design platform. The collaboration brings automated layout suggestions, real-time design assistance, and AI-powered workflow enhancements to millions of designers.
For designers, the pitch is compelling. Gemini can suggest layout improvements, generate component variations, automate repetitive design tasks, and speed up the journey from concept to prototype. What used to take hours of manual adjustment can now happen in minutes with AI assistance.
The integration leans on Gemini’s multimodal capabilities. It can understand design context, interpret user intent, and offer suggestions that actually make sense within the project’s visual language. Early testers report that it feels less like using a tool and more like collaborating with a very fast, very knowledgeable design assistant.
Figma isn’t the first design tool to add AI features, but the Gemini integration goes deeper than most. It’s not just about generating images or suggesting colors. It’s about embedding AI throughout the entire design workflow, from ideation to final handoff.
But there’s tension here. Design isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about intuition, taste, and the thousands of micro-decisions that give work its distinct character. When AI handles more of those decisions, even with human oversight, something subtle shifts.
The Automation of Intuition#
We’re entering an era where AI doesn’t just automate tasks, it automates taste. It learns from millions of examples and suggests what works based on patterns. That’s incredibly powerful, but patterns aren’t the same as vision.
The danger isn’t that AI will replace designers. It’s that it will make design too easy, too fast, too similar. When everyone has access to the same AI that suggests the same optimized solutions, we risk a flattening of creative expression. The tools that were meant to amplify human creativity might instead constrain it to algorithmically approved choices. True originality often comes from breaking patterns, not perfecting them.