Figma’s founding vision was bold: to create a professional-grade digital design tool that runs entirely in the browser.
And the company’s CFO, Praveer Melwani, concedes that when the idea first surfaced, customers were skeptical. “When we brought the idea to our customers, they were looking at us scratching their heads,” he says.
But the business stayed committed to the belief that browser-based design would unlock real-time collaboration from day one – changing the way teams design digital products.
The outcome was a browser-accessed platform that allows teams to “go from idea to shipped product within a singular platform,” Melwani explains.
“Design is a challenge that may not be solved by one individual,” he adds. We recognized the true collaborative nature of design is what’s going to allow companies to differentiate.”
Design becomes critical to adding value
Melwani argues that in an increasingly digital world, companies across every sector have become more “software-defined,” opening the door for design-led thinking to unlock meaningful value. With customer experience now beginning on a screen rather than in person, companies must invest more deeply in design to stay competitive. That’s why Figma’s mission has expanded to educating leaders on how design drives performance and how a shared platform can elevate teams’ creative output.
Melwani describes teams as needing the right foundation “to take their process to the next level. Design quality has become a primary competitive differentiator.” Figma’s global adoption reflects that shift: 78% of the Forbes Global 2000 are now customers, and 85% of weekly active users are based outside the US.
“Design quality has become a primary competitive differentiator.”
Praveer Melwani, CFO, Figma
AI: lowering the floor, raising the ceiling
AI is a major accelerant for Figma’s evolution – both enhancing the product offering and driving business productivity and efficiency. Melwani explains that planning now begins with systems, not staffing. “The discussion is now less around where we need additional people and much more around the process, infrastructure and tooling we can use.”
Figma is also embedding AI into its product offering. “We've brought in a whole suite of different AI features,” he explains, “ranging from things that can help you reduce tedium in your workflows, to removing backgrounds and renaming your layers.”
Figma Make is designed to give project managers or researchers the ability to move ideas forward without relying on a designer or developer, using AI to communicate concepts more quickly. That acceleration in iteration and feedback ultimately helps teams build better products for end users.
Melwani defines the impact of AI as twofold: lowering the barrier to entry and expanding capabilities for experts. Experimentation is a key component.
“If you sit on your hands and hope for it to come to you, you're probably going to put yourself on the back foot. A willingness to invest in the learning and development of how to use these tools across the company is increasingly more valuable.”
“A willingness to invest in the learning and development of how to use these tools across the company is increasingly more valuable.”
Praveer Melwani, CFO, Figma
Expanding through acquisition and partnerships
The recent acquisition of Weavy, a company trailblazing new ways of working by fusing generative AI models with editing tools, reflects Figma’s belief in the convergence of digital creation, collaboration and communication.
Although only a year old, Weavy is now being used by Fortune 100 companies, Melwani says, adding that the company’s founders bring “years and years of experience in VX, VFX tooling, and asset generation.”
Figma’s recent integration with OpenAI, now a strategic partner, allows users to generate diagrams or flowcharts inside ChatGPT and then “double-click over to FigJam and elevate the craft.” As creative workflows begin in more places, Melwani stresses the need to “meet users where they are.”
Blurring the boundaries between roles
With AI accelerating development, the boundaries between designers, engineers, and product managers are shifting. Figma’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) server illustrates this change by enabling developers using agentic coding tools to pull design context directly and generate interfaces instantly. As Melwani notes, tasks once considered core front-end development work are increasingly shared across roles.
This shift expands Figma’s reach within organizations and enhances the value of the design system as the source of truth, he adds. Similarly, Figma Make empowers PMs and researchers to prototype independently, producing “a much more realistic output that leads to better outcomes.”
Looking ahead: the growing importance of design
Melwani argues that AI will continue to radically change the industry: “AI has made it much simpler to create software generally. We believe there’s going to be a near vertical line in software creation.”
“Not all of that vertical line will create great software,” he adds. “The value will really start to accrue to the top end of the stack and great design and craft is how companies will win.”
