Figma pulls AI tool after criticism for copying Apple’s design

Figma’s new tool, Make Designs, lets users quickly mock up app designs using generative AI. It was pulled after the tool produced designs that bore a striking resemblance to Apple’s iOS weather app. Figma CEO Dylan Field posted a thread on X early Tuesday morning detailing the removal, blaming himself for pushing the team to meet a deadline and defending the company’s approach to developing its AI tools.

In posts on X, Not Boring Software CEO Andy Allen showed how Figma’s Make Designs tool could make near-exact replicas of Apple’s weather app. “I want to caution any designers using the new Make Designs feature that they should carefully review existing apps or significantly modify the results to avoid unknowingly finding themselves in a legal situation,” Allen wrote.

In an interview Tuesday with Figma CTO Kris Rasmussen, I asked him point blank whether Make Designs had been trained on Apple’s app designs. His answer? He couldn’t say for sure. Figma wasn’t responsible for training the AI ​​models it used at all.

“We haven’t done any training on the generative AI features,” Rasmussen said. The features are “powered by off-the-shelf models and a custom design system that we commissioned, which seems to be the underlying problem.”

That’s generally consistent with what he said on X on Monday in response to a user who suggested Make Designs was being trained on existing apps. “As we stated when we launched Figma AI last week, there was no training as part of this feature or any of our generative features,” he wrote. “We are reviewing the extent to which similarities are a function of the third-party models we use versus the design systems we commissioned to be used by the models and will address that as necessary.”

Field, in his own thread, said that the Make Designs feature “is not trained on Figma content, community files, or app designs” and noted that “the accusations about data training in this tweet are false.” He said one problem with the company’s approach is that “the variability is too low.”

According to Rasmussen, the main AI models powering Make Designs are OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Amazon’s Titan Image Generator G1. While it’s true that Figma hasn’t trained its AI tools but they still produce apps similar to Apple’s, that could suggest that OpenAI’s or Amazon’s models were trained on Apple’s designs. OpenAI and Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rasmussen argued that Figma doesn’t want to offer training to improve its features until it opens up its AI training policies with its users, which it also introduced last week. Under those policies, users have until August 15 to decide whether or not they want to allow their content to be used for Figma training. (Starter and Professional plans are enabled by default, while Organization and Enterprise plans are disabled by default.)

I asked if Figma plans to train its own models, which, given the company’s new AI training policies, seems like a thing that’s going to happen. “We definitely see opportunities to really perfect your design workflows by teaching these models how to design in the context of Figma,” Rasmussen said. However, “we’re going to take steps to ensure that our own models or any fine-tuning we do with open-source models only learn general design patterns and specific Figma design concepts so that they can be better tools for professional designers.”

I also asked Rasmussen how Figma plans to fix its processes to catch potential issues in the future. “We’re doing a test of the custom design system to make sure it has enough variation and meets our quality standards,” he said. “That’s the root cause of the issue. But we’re going to take extra precautions before we re-enable[Make Designs]to make sure the entire feature meets our quality standards and is consistent with our values.”

Rasmussen also pointed out that Make Designs is in beta. “Betas, by definition, are not perfect. But it’s safe to say, as Dylan indicated in his tweet, that we simply didn’t catch this particular issue. And we should have.”

Rasmussen said Figma plans to re-enable Make Designs “soon.” Other Figma AI features will continue to be available in beta. (To access any of Figma’s AI features, you’ll need to join a waitlist.)

Figma is the latest company to come under scrutiny for its approach to integrating AI into its creative tools. Adobe had to clarify that it wouldn’t use your work to train its AI after being criticized for changes to its terms of service. And Meta had to change its AI labels after photographers complained that its old label was incorrectly applied to real photos.