Figma has rolled out a substantial update that tightens the gap between design and engineering, introducing code layers, animation and shader support, and expanded AI capabilities for building custom plugins.
Code Layers: Design Meets Development
The headline feature is a new code layer that lives directly inside the Figma canvas. This allows teams to embed logic and code alongside visual assets, reducing the back-and-forth between designers and developers.
- Developers can attach code directly to design components
- Keeps implementation details in context with the design source of truth
- Aims to reduce handoff friction in cross-functional teams
Motion and Shader Support
Figma is expanding its historically static canvas with first-class support for motion and shaders. Designers can now work with animations natively, rather than relying on third-party tools or workarounds.
Shader support opens the door for GPU-accelerated visual effects within designs, giving teams a more accurate preview of how final products will look and behave in production environments.
AI-Powered Custom Plugins
Perhaps the most forward-looking addition is the ability to create custom plugins using AI. Users can describe a task in natural language and have Figma generate a working plugin to automate it.
This lowers the barrier to automation significantly:
- Describe the workflow you want to automate
- AI generates a functional plugin
- Deploy it directly within your Figma workspace
The feature builds on Figma's broader AI strategy, which has accelerated over the past year as the company competes with tools like Framer, Webflow, and emerging AI-native design platforms.
Why It Matters
Taken together, these updates push Figma closer to a unified design-to-code environment — a space it has been inching toward since acquiring Diagram and deepening its developer tooling. For engineering and product teams working in fast-moving environments, the promise is fewer context switches and a single source of truth from concept to production.
