Figma’s AI-powered app generator is back after it was pulled for copying Apple

Figma announced Make Designs in June as a way for designers to use generative AI to help start app designs, but early users quickly showed how it could mock up a weather app that looked remarkably close to Apple’s iPhone weather app. Although Figma insisted that the feature wasn’t trained on customer data — in fact, Figma said it didn’t train the off-the-shelf generative AI models used — the company removed the feature to give it more testing.

Now it’s coming back, called “First Draft,” and like Figma’s other AI features, it’s available currently in a limited beta.

Figma is also adding features to First Draft as part of the relaunch:

We’re also introducing some key updates, like letting you choose from one of four libraries depending on your needs—whether it’s a wireframing library to help you sketch out less opinionated, lo-fi primitives, or higher-fidelity libraries to provide more visual expressions or patterns to explore. This offers a looser, more exploratory counterpoint to the utility of our Visual Search feature, which allows you to search your Figma files via prompt or image to find existing files or components.

Image: Figma

In its blog post about the relaunch, the company also spelled out how First Draft works:

First Draft doesn’t train on customer content. It uses off-the-shelf AI models (like OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Amazon Titan) with three key elements: model, context, and prompt. The context includes proprietary mobile and desktop design systems with numerous components and assembly examples. Users input their design goals as the prompt. The AI then selects, arranges, and customizes design system components based on these inputs, creating a starting point for designs.

Figma says it’s relaunched the feature after “extensive analysis, iteration, and testing.”

Figma’s other AI features also include the ability to auto-generate text for your designs.