ChatGPT Integration Will Allow User to "Go Bigger": Figma CEO

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Watch ChatGPT Integration Will Allow User to "Go Bigger": Figma CEO - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

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00:00Figma overall is the platform to go from idea to app and make it so that you have a seamless

00:06journey along the way. One of the products we have is FigJam, which is a way to do ideation,

00:11brainstorming, and really exploration with your team, and also diagramming. And the diagramming

00:18use case is something that we've been focused on a lot because it's a key part of how you plan for

00:24your team, think through decisions, and more. And one thing that I've personally noticed in my own

00:30use of ChatTBT and other LMs is you often get to this place where they actually have a very good

00:37ability to understand a diagram, but not the ability to express it. Instead, you get mermaid code,

00:43you get abstract stuff that you need to copy and paste to something, and there's not really a good

00:48place to paste it even. And so when we had a chance to talk with ChatTBT about this integration,

00:54we got really excited about what we do to make it so that you can take the mermaid code generated

01:00through ChatTBT and then be able to use it in FigJam. It also lets the user articulate perhaps more

01:09easily just because it's a prompt to result system. Why is it better from the user's perspective or

01:16somebody working on the project to do it through ChatTBT and not within FigJam in and of itself?

01:22Well, actually, we think of it as a both. There are times you know exactly what you're going for,

01:27and you just want to draw something out as a diagram. There's also times you want to collaborate

01:30with your team. That's what FigJam really started as, whiteboarding and brainstorming. But I also see it

01:35as a workflow where sometimes what you want, I was doing this last night, for example, you want to start

01:40with the ChatTBT session. You want to build up a lot of context, make it into a diagram, iterate

01:46through prompting a little bit, and then pull it in to FigJam's platform. That way you can save it,

01:52you can share it, but also you can tweak it. And I think that right now we're in this world where,

01:57whether it's software and exponential rise that might be even going vertical, that's been happening for decades.

02:02Right. But even more so now. And as that's happening, design, taste, craft, point of view,

02:10that's differentiator. But also for visual communication, it's so important to be able

02:15to really easily visually communicate your ideas. And if you're not able to show up in the workplace

02:21that way and to be able to show up with high design literacy and the ability to express yourself in your

02:28communication, then you're kind of at a disadvantage. So how do we make it so that more people are able

02:34to do that? And I think this is a way that makes it so that more people can even faster go create

02:40that diagram, go create something in FigJam, and also they can then go modify it more and they can

02:47actually make it their own once they actually open it up on the platform. So it excites me a lot,

02:53both the prompting and iteratively, as well as the way that you go into from that, the thing,

02:59the platform and you can share, you can edit. There is an interesting debate to be had about

03:03the direction of traffic. When you were negotiating with OpenAI to be one of these initial third parties,

03:10what concerns did you have that it would take people's time away from FigJam, as an example,

03:16and be within ChatGPT? Or do you not see it like that? I didn't even see it like that, really,

03:22because I'll give an example. I mean, New Year's Eve of this year, I was, I'm kind of nerdy. My

03:31friends are nerdy. We do talks every year. And we each give like a talk for New Year's Eve. And I

03:38thought, okay, my talk is going to be on the tech tree from now to 2100. Okay, as opposed to a

03:43resolution, you... Oh, we do resolutions too. Okay. It's white elephant resolutions, different topic for

03:47another time. That's a fun one. Anyway, so I basically was getting very excited about O1 Pro,

03:54trying that out. And I thought, okay, this would be like an hour or two, maybe. I started prompting

03:59O1 Pro to give me a tech tree. And it actually ended up being like a 24-hour thing of, you know,

04:05two-thirds of that time was O1 Pro, a third was then copying and pasting manually in a FigJam and

04:09doing all that layout. Last night, I did it again. And I put a video up online about it. It took me,

04:16I think, overall, between the prompting and then the editing in FigJam and laying it out perfectly,

04:21half an hour total. So the ability to, with better models, have richer context and have the ability

04:28to just go bigger and think bigger and to really iterate through your ideas, but also the ability

04:34to then have applications on top, such as FigJam. You can do more. You can do way more.

04:38And more quickly, but also you can go explore more things.

04:41There are now 800 million active weekly users or weekly active users on ChatGPT.

04:49Do you therefore see it as a good sales channel or go-to-market channel now that you're an API partner?

04:58It could be. We'll have to see over time. The primary motivation is on the user side always.

05:03How do we make it so that we have the best experience for our users? And sometimes it's

05:08going to be in FigJam. Sometimes it's going to be elsewhere. Right. More generally right now,

05:13we are thinking a lot about how do we extend our ecosystem? So Figma Design, our flagship product,

05:20is a way to basically go and design interfaces. With DevMod MCP, you can then actually integrate into

05:27IDEs, codecs, whatever, and anything that supports MCP, pull that context out of Figma Design into

05:36your editor, your agentic environment of choice. And I think more generally, across our platform,

05:44we're thinking through how do we open up the ecosystem? Even for Figma Make, which is one of

05:50our most important efforts right now that we are pushing super hard on. This is how you go from prompt to

05:55app in just one step. And then you can iterate through prompting. We want to both connect it

06:01with the Figma platform, make us see you have a round trip with Figma Design, and you can edit it,

06:05you can improve the visuals. But also, even for the competitors to Figma Make, we are trying to be

06:12system partners with them as well. Because we believe that the product development life cycle

06:20is on Figma, but design is this gravitational pull. Because design is going to make you win

06:27or lose in an age where software and the rate of software creation is increasing more than ever

06:33before. If you build out this ecosystem and OpenAI is going to participate in it, and it sounds like

06:40volumatically for both of you, it's really important. But is there some kind of revenue sharing

06:45agreement? Like, what is in it for you guys as partners other than the technology cooperation?

06:51Yeah. I mean, there wasn't really, like, a negotiation of any kind. It was a collaboration.

06:58And our, you know, me, our engineers, our product people, we're talking with their engineers,

07:02their product people. We just have, like, a Slack channel going. I was literally DMing their engineers

07:07up to, I think, midnight last night. Wow. Just identifying long tail issues that they're checking out

07:12to make sure everything's ready for their day. Yes. And the team has been amazing to work with.

07:17And yeah, just in general, been very thankful for the partnership and the chance to go build this

07:22Figma app on the ChatGPT system. Dylan, I know that you probably weren't paying attention to this

07:27particular point. But during the early part of the keynote, Figma shares went ballistic, frankly.

07:34Many other names did as well when they were going through the list of partners

07:38that will be API access through the ChatGPT. What does that signal to you about, you know,

07:45when OpenAI communicates, there is that level of response from your investors and the technology

07:52industry at large? Yeah, you surprised me with that earlier before we started talking in the interview.

07:57Right. And I'll have to check it later. But I don't know, is the honest answer,

08:03because it's not really something that I'm as tuned into. I told the team before we IPO'd,

08:09during the IPO, after the IPO, number goes up, number goes down. Right.

08:14What matters are the inputs. Every day, we got to be driving to make sure that we are making a better

08:19user experience, better products for all of our users on the platform. And so I think if it means

08:26anything to me, it's people see possibility in how these systems can work together. But now we have

08:32to go make sure that we prove it. And that's great. And hopefully it's just a start and there's a lot

08:37more we can do. Very quickly before we let you go, you know, you talked about speaking with the

08:43slacking the OpenAI engineering team until very late last night. Just as a moment in time like this

08:49Dev Day, where there are thousands of people here in Fort Mason, San Francisco, in your technology

08:54career. Could you try and summarize what you think is happening in particular with AI and what's

08:59happening in this city? I think it's a moment of excitement. And I mean, look, if you're an

09:06engineer, if you're a designer, a product person, what do you love? You love new toys. And there are

09:12new toys every week or two right now. Toys you can go build with, things that you can go and use to

09:19invent the future and create new workflows. That's exciting for a technologist. And, you know, where

09:26it all goes, nobody knows. If they tell you they do, they're lying to you or to themselves. I don't

09:32know where everything's headed. But I think that definitely it's a moment of excitement right now.

09:38And we're excited about all the change we can make for our users and how we can make

09:42their experiences in Figma better.

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