Figma CPO Discusses Product Launches

Yuhki Yamashita's path to the C-suite included senior product and design roles at Microsoft, Google, and Uber. At Uber, he led the complete redesign of the rider app and later headed up design for new mobility experiences like bikes and scooters before joining Figma as VP of Product in 2019 and being promoted to CPO in 2022. The recent product launches stem from Figma's push to integrate AI across the entire product development lifecycle. New tools announced at its Config conference include Figma Sites for turning designs into live websites, Figma Make for prompt-to-code generation, and Figma Buzz for creating on-brand marketing assets. Figma's strategy is to position AI as an assistant that speeds up work while leaving the final craft and judgment in human hands. This "pilot, not co-pilot" philosophy is embedded in their tools, ensuring every AI-generated element remains fully editable by the user. The company has also adapted its "multiplayer" model to AI, allowing teams to prompt and create with AI together in real-time. Yamashita's leadership is guided by a core tenet of "user love," focusing on building genuine relationships with the user community to shape the product. This approach is exemplified by the creation of FigJam, which was directly inspired by observing users "hacking" the core design tool for brainstorming and whiteboarding during the pandemic. Before joining the company, Yamashita was an early adopter of Figma while working at Uber. He championed its adoption to solve his own frustrations with the "clunky process" of translating design mockups into product specs, believing the boundary between product management and design should be more blurred. A key theme of the new releases is bridging the gap between design and code. Features like the Dev Mode MCP Server are designed to deliver design context—such as variables and styles—directly into a developer's preferred LLM or coding tool, ensuring AI-generated code aligns with existing design systems.