AI Fluency Isn’t the Finish Line | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)
AI skills are increasingly viewed as essential, but Figma argues that tool fluency is only the starting point. As AI makes it easier to generate work, the more valuable capabilities are building shared systems, guiding teams toward decisions, and creating an environment where people can experiment together. The goal is not for one person to work dramatically faster alone, but for entire teams to move faster collectively. ## Become an Internal Product Builder - Individual AI expertise has greater impact when turned into shared tools that benefit the whole team. - Useful examples include: - Prototyping agents - Brand plugins - Shared prompt libraries - Internal prototyping playgrounds - Figma researcher Shane Johnston used AI to build an interactive website for exploring the company’s AI report data, making the information accessible to cross-functional stakeholders. - Figma’s Brand Studio created an image-effect generator in Figma Make so teammates could apply custom, on-brand textures to designs with one click. - AI enables more employees—not just engineers—to identify workflow friction and build tools that solve it. - The broader opportunity is shifting from one person working “10x faster” to the entire team becoming more productive. ## Guide People to a Decision - When AI can produce dozens of possible directions quickly, evaluating and selecting among them becomes a core product skill. - Effective facilitation requires involving the right stakeholders, including: - People with dissenting or contrarian perspectives - Colleagues with historical context - Experts who can identify operational, security, or governance risks - One team discovered that an internally vibe-coded app exposed sensitive company project information, illustrating why data governance experts should be involved early. - Teams should provide context before review meetings through: - Prototype demonstrations - Loom videos - Annotated FigJam files - At Figma, these materials help shift meetings away from explaining options and toward discussing trade-offs and making decisions. - Facilitators should ensure discussions reach a clear outcome by inviting quieter participants, clarifying vague recommendations, asking forward-moving questions, and confirming next steps. ## Share Bad Ideas - AI adoption is occurring at different speeds across teams and organizations. - The report found that: - 20% of respondents said individual contributors were advancing faster than their organizations could support. - 27% said leadership was pushing AI adoption while teams struggled to keep up. - Without deliberate knowledge-sharing and collaboration, the gap between early adopters and less experienced users can continue to widen.