Figma claims it did not train the generative artificial intelligence models it used and blames a “bespoke design system.”
Figma recently launched a new interface and several AI tools on June 26, marking its third significant redesign since its inception. However, shortly after the launch, one of the AI tools called Make Design, which generates app mock-ups from text prompts, faced backlash.
Several users claimed that the AI-generated user interface designs looked strikingly similar to Apple’s iOS apps, including icons and logos.
Figma’s Make Designs tool allows users to quickly mock up apps using generative AI. However, it has been pulled after the tool produced designs that closely resembled Apple’s iOS weather app.
The Make Design tool, as per the company, is an AI-powered feature that enables users to add a text prompt and generate user-interface layouts and component options complete with an app mock-up. The tool was designed to help users get a rough design of the app before they can fine-tune it as per their preference and use case.
Andy Allen, CEO of Not Boring Software, posted on X that the Figma tool was generating mock-ups of apps that closely resembled existing apps. In one instance, the requested weather app design appeared very similar to the iOS Weather app in terms of user interface, icons, and information experience.
In response, Figma removed the AI tool, and CEO Dylan Field addressed the allegations. Figma CEO Dylan Field posted a thread on X detailing the removal, taking responsibility for pushing the team to meet a deadline and defending the company’s approach to developing AI tools.
According to him, the main issue was the low variability of the Make Design tool, which was caused by using an off-the-shelf large language model. Acknowledging his fault in not running quality analysis tests of the feature properly before release, he said that it was temporarily disabled. “We will re-enable it when we have completed a full QA pass on the underlying design system,” Field added.
Field also stated that the issues with the generation occurred because the company did not have knowledge of where the training data came from, highlighting that the company outsourced both the AI models and the data from design systems.
For now, the Make Designs AI tool is not available to Figma users. The company will likely run a full-scale QA pass on the system to identify whether the training data of the design systems or pre-training data of the AI model was configured using existing app designs. If this turns out to be the case, users might have to wait a long time before Figma can fix these foundational issues.
The key AI models that power Make Designs are OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Amazon’s Titan Image Generator G1. If it is true that Figma did not train its AI tools but they are spitting out Apple app lookalikes anyway, that could suggest that OpenAI or Amazon’s models were trained on Apple’s designs.
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 would not utilise its users’ work to train its AI after backlash toward terms of service changes. Meanwhile, Meta has had to change its AI labels after photographers complained about its old label being incorrectly applied to real photos.
