Figma's community never disappoints. While we're waiting for Figma AI (i.e. "First Draft") to be released to the general public, the community has taken it upon itself to create a range of AI tools for Figma. Each of these tools add distinct AI features to Figma.
With over 100 AI plugins in Figma, offering functionality across the product development process, it's getting hard to see the trees for the forest! So to help you out we made a selection of top Figma plugins using artificial intelligence across four categories related to UX and UI design.
- First Draft Generation: This category consists of plugins that generate actual Figma layers (sometimes even already in auto layout!) from prompts. These are typically used to rapidly ideate and generate first drafts of user interfaces.
- User Research: A highly controversial category, these plugins accelerate your user research by using AI to generate user feedback or mimic user testing sessions.
- Image Creation and Editing: Most designs will integrate images in some shape and form. AI plugins in this category leverage AI to facilitate creating and editing these images inside of Figma.
- Design Productivity in General: We have yet to witness full-fledged design copilots (in the same way we're seeing copilots for developers for example). However, plugins in this category leverage AI to help streamline various aspects of a designer's job (e.g. generating user personas, creating information architectures, etc.).
Category 1: Plugins for First Draft Generation
Staring at that blank Figma canvas can be daunting. Luckily, in this first category of Figma AI plugins we'll run you through our top three pick of "first draft" plugins. In other words, plugins that will generate frames, components, layers from scratch (or rather, from your prompt).
FigVision - AI Image to Design
What Does it Do?
FigVision's value proposition is simple but compelling: the plugin will turn screenshots of websites or applications into editable Figma layers ... with auto layout enabled! The use cases are diverse, from rapidly creating design systems to accelerating the time you need to get a first draft by getting inspiration from screenshots of existing products and websites.
What Does it Cost?
FigVision's free tier is sufficient to get you started and try it out thoroughly. You'll be able to generate 30 sections out of your screenshots per mont. Beyond this you'll need to either pay $5/month or $9/month depending on your generating needs (i.e. 200 or 300 sections respectively). It's important to note that FigVision is still in beta at the time of writing.
Weavely.ai - Publish Forms & Surveys from Figma
What Does it Do?
Weavely is an AI-powered plugin that generates web forms in Figma. Weavely's AI chatbot will generate form pages and a form component library based on your prompts. Moreover, Weavely then allows you to publish your forms and surveys designed in Figma to the web with the click of a button. In other words, Weavely serves as a Figma-first alternative to traditional form builders (e.g. Typeform, Google Forms, Fillout, etc). The only limit to your web form's UX and UI is your creativity!
Want to learn more about building forms with AI? In this blog post, we go through all aspects of AI-powered form builders.
What Does it Cost?
Weavely has an extensive free tier, allowing you to publish up to 5 forms that collect 100 responses per month. If you need more forms, more responses or additional premium functionality (e.g. custom branding, file uploads, collect signatures, etc.) you can upgrade to the paying tiers. The starter tier (€10/month) offers you unlimited forms and 1000 responses per month while the pro tier (€30/month) allows for collaboration amongst team members and increases the responses limit to 5000 per month.
Dora AI - Generate Websites in Figma
What Does it Do?
Dora AI is an AI-native website building platform. It allows you to generate complete websites and landing pages from a couple of prompts. They have two Figma plugins you can use. The first plugin allows you to generate complete website designs (desktop and mobile versions) in Figma using their AI engine. A second plugin then allows you to import your Figma designs into Dora AI and publish them to the web!
What Does it Cost?
You get 120 Dora AI credits for free upon signing up. These credits are enough to generate ~6 landing pages with their AI and then publish it to the web using Dora AI as well (limited to 1K visitors). If you need more credits, or if you have more visitors for your website (hurray!) then there's additional paying tiers to suit your needs for $18 or $30 per month.
Category 2: User Research Plugins
Nothing beats good old user feedback to test design assumptions or improve a product. Unfortunately, getting access to these users isn't always within everyone's budget, time- or money-wise. Without passing judgement on the validity of AI-powered user research, here are three AI user research plugins in Figma to get you started.
Clueify
What Does it Do?
You've designed a shiny new landing page, but you want to make sure that the visitor's attention is drawn to the right place (e.g. that shiny CTA button)? Clueify allows you to essentially simulate a visitor's attention, and analyse it in various forms: heatmaps, focus maps, gazeplots, etc. It's important to note that there's quite a lot of these plugins available within the Figma ecosystem now (e.g. Visual Eyes, Attention Insight, etc.).
What Does it Cost?
No free tier for this one, although you get a 14-day free trial to test out the functionality. After that you'll need to spend either €23 or €69 per month. Based on the amount of seats you'll need and the number of analyses you'll run per month.
AI User Simulation
What Does it Do?
The promise of this plugin is auspicious: to let AI run through your Figma prototype and mimic your users' behaviour. The goal is to enable you, as a ux designer or researcher to be able to test and iterate as much as you want by observing how the AI navigates the prototype and by asking it for targeted feedback along the journey. Although it's an interesting concept, the plugin is currently still in a very early stage and is therefore not stable enough to be used on larger projects. Still, it's definitely worth checking out!
What Does it Cost?
AI User Simulation is currently only available as an early preview (pre beta), and therefore free. The creators haven't communicated about potential pricing plans in the future.
Klever - Instant Usability testing
What Does it Do?
Select a Figma frame, give a prompt to Klever explaining what the user should try to accomplish from that frame and Klever will automatically generate you a structured usability testing report. The output is surprisingly well made. Although it definitely doesn't beat a human-made usability report done through observation of actual users, Klever will enable you to rapidly weed out obvious issues in a structured manner and sometimes even generate reports which are good enough for presentations. The plugin is still in its infancy, but it's good enough to start using in projects in our opinion.
What Does it Cost?
You have a free trial for 48 hours after which you'll need to have your own OpenAI API key and pay for the AI usage yourself. It's worth noting that the plugin was still in very early stage at the time of writing and that the pricing model is likely to change in the near future.
Category 3: Plugins with Image Editing and Creation Features
Images are rarely the main content of your ui designs, unless you're designing image-specific products obviously. However, most products will rely on imagery for some parts of the design. Here's our top three pick of AI-infused image editing plugins in Figma.
Codia AI VectorMagic: Image to Full-Color Vector/PNG to SVG
What Does it Do?
Let me sketch you a recurring scenario of mine: I have a pixelated image of some graphic or logo and I need it in vector format to integrate it into a design. The Codia AI plugin solves this exact issue, by vectorising any image inside of Figma. From what we've been able to test it does so extremely accurately as well!
What Does it Cost?
Codia let's you convert 10 images per month (with a limited resolution) in their free tier. Should you need more conversions, or have images in bigger resolutions then you can choose from two premium tiers: starter at $19 per month or pro for $39 per month.
Remove Background (Privacy-First)
What Does it Do?
The value proposition will probably be very familiar. Remove Background ... removes the background from images in Figma! Why did we include it in our list? First of all it's the only privacy-first background removal plugin. The AI model is first downloaded into your Figma environment and then used to remove the background. So your images never leave the Figma environment! Second, it's free without any limitations!
What Does it Cost?
Nothing ... as in really nothing. This is 100%, no API key, no registration process. When does that ever happen right?!
Avatars Generator
What Does it Do?
We design products for humans, and humans sure do love seeing images of other humans! Joking aside, Avatars Generator is a lifesaver for your portrait picture needs for two reasons. First, It'll generate avatars in any selected Figma frame , regardless of dimensions. Second, given that these avatars are AI generated you won't need to worry about copy rights and the likes!
What Does it Cost?
You get to generate 3 avatars for free every day. If you want to generate more, or if you want to control some of the generated avatars' appearances (i.e. gender, race, age) then you'll need to upgrade for $4. Refreshingly that price is a lifetime deal, no recurring subscriptions here!
Category 4: Figma AI Plugins for Design Productivity
We're seeing AI copilots pop up in various industries. From "coding buddies" helping to spot bugs early on and auto-completing developers' code to "legal helpers" automatically looking for relevant clauses while a lawyer drafts a contract, AI copilots are everywhere. Designers can turn to the following Figma plugins to experiment with copilot-enhanced workflows.
QoQo.ai - AI generated UX personas, journey mapping, sitemap, and copywriting
What Does it Do?
QoQo essentially serves as an assistant for ux designers and researchers. It offers functionality categorised amongst the ux design process:
- Ideate: You can either chat with QoQo's AI to brainstorm or chat based on the data contained in a specific document.
- Discover: From generating design briefs, to coming up with questions for a user interview, summarising insights from large bodies of data and even generating discovery questionnaires.
- Define: Need an affinity map, personas, user journey maps ? QoQo has got you covered!
- Design: Finally, QoQo will even help you create information architectures and do some UX copywriting for you as well.
What Does it Cost?
QoQo comes with a 7-day trial which allows you to try out all the functionality. Beyond the trial you'll need to pay $7 per month to use the plugin.
UX Pilot - AI Design Review
What Does it Do?
UX Pilot will generate design reviews from your designs in Figma. Interestingly you can either choose from a design review template or provide your own review template using a prompt. UX Pilot also provides an entire platform besides it's design-review focussed Figma plugin. This platform provides additional functionality ranging from generating various kinds of interview briefs to generating wireframes and complete UI designs (which you can then import to Figma).
What Does it Cost?
Unfortunately, UX Pilot's design review functionality is a paying feature. You'll need to pay $15 per month to access it. Their standalone platform does offer a free tier which limits you to specific functionality (e.g. generating interviews and workshop briefs).
Design Buddy: Your full-time design assistant
What Does it Do?
Design Buddy provides structured design feedback and critique on any given frame in Figma. Design Buddy's main differentiator (in comparison to other feedback generators) is its structured approach. Each review comes in four subcategories: overall feedback, layout, colours, typography and accessibility.
What Does it Cost?
Unfortunately there's no free tier or even free trial for Design Buddy. Design Buddy's pricing model is based on the amount of reviews you need per month: 50, 150 or 500 which respectively will set you back $5, $15 or $50 per month.
Frequently Asked Questions about AI in Figma
What AI features are currently available in Figma?
Figma offers a variety of AI features across its products, including:
- Text summarisation and brainstorming tools in FigJam.
- Asset search and design suggestions in Figma Design.
- Text rewriting, translation, and shortening capabilities.
- Prototyping assistance and layer renaming using AI.
These features are designed to enhance productivity and streamline the design process.
How do I access AI features in Figma?
To access AI features, users must be part of the limited beta program and have opted into AI settings. Admins can enable or disable these features for their teams. If you don’t see the AI options, it may be due to your team being opted out or not being part of the beta.
Is there a cost associated with using AI features in Figma?
Currently, Figma's AI features are free while in beta. However, usage limits may apply, and pricing details will be updated once the features are generally available.
How does Figma handle data privacy with AI tools?
Figma ensures that data inputted into AI tools is processed by OpenAI but is not used for model training. Users should exercise caution and verify information generated by AI before making decisions based on it.
Can I disable AI features if I don't want to use them?
Yes, admins have the ability to toggle AI features on or off for their teams at any time. This allows for flexibility depending on team needs or preferences.
What types of tasks can I automate using AI in Figma?
AI can assist with various tasks, such as:
- Generating design assets based on prompts.
- Summarising meeting notes or brainstorming sessions.
- Creating visual timelines and diagrams.
- Reframing text for different audiences or tones.
