Figma, the design platform, is reshaping how designers work with AI. The company announced on Thursday a collaboration with Google to introduce more AI features into its design software. Although Figma had previously launched its own AI application building tools, the new integration with Google will bring multiple Gemini models to the design software, meeting the changing needs of product designers and their teams, as stated by Figma.
Through this collaboration, Gemini 2.5 Flash, Gemini 2.0, and Imagen 4 will be added to Figma's toolset, while the company maintains its relationship with Google Cloud.
Gemini 2.5 Flash will be integrated into the image editing process and Figma's image generation feature, allowing the software's 13 million monthly active users to create and request modifications to AI-generated images through prompts. The company believes this new feature will accelerate workflows and cites data from previous testing of Gemini 2.5 Flash, showing a 50% reduction in latency when using the image creation feature.
This collaboration now becomes one of many partnerships among top AI manufacturers who want to integrate their models into existing applications with large user bases to establish dominance in the competitive consumer adoption race. For example, this week, OpenAI announced that its users can now have conversations with apps within ChatGPT, including apps from Spotify, Booking.com, Expedia, Coursera, Zillow, Canva, and others. Figma is also on that list, indicating that the deal with Google Gemini is not exclusive.
The news of the Figma deal comes alongside Google's announcement of Gemini Enterprise, an AI-powered conversational platform designed to bring AI into the existing workflows of enterprise customers. This means users can interact with their documents, data, and applications, and engineers can access tools to build and deploy AI agents or use a set of existing agents.
Google positions this message as a victory for the potential of AI to increase efficiency and improve workflows, which companies relying on these integrations are likely willing to pay for. In a moment when consumer-driven AI profit growth is rising and enterprise generative AI pilot projects often fail, this is a strategic move.
To address this, Google pointed out that 65% of Google Cloud customers are using its AI products.
In addition to the Figma deal, Google also announced AI collaborations with GAP, Gordon Foods, Klarna, Macquarie Bank, Melexis, Mercedes, Signal Iduna, Valiuz, and Virgin Voyages. These new partners join the existing group of partners using Gemini, including Banco BV, Behr, Box, DBS Bank, Deloitte, Deutsche Telekom, FairPrice Group, the U.S. Department of Energy, and others.
The core logic of the AI model competition is becoming clearer: whoever can occupy more use cases and user entry points will gain an advantage in the race. The partnership between Figma and Google is not exclusive, reflecting the pragmatic attitude of design platforms in the AI era, as they need to provide the best tools for their users rather than being tied to a single technology vendor. For the 13 million designers, what really matters is whether these AI tools can make their creations faster and better, and the 50% reduction in latency is just the beginning.
