Transcript for:
AI Features and Market Dynamics

Which models are powering your AI features yeah so we're using uh open AI uh for our LMS and we're also using a diffusion model hosted by Amazon Amazon Titan why those two um they were the ones that that were working well for our use cases but I mean the reality is you build all this in a modular way where you can swap out models because the only constant right now is change and things are rapidly improving and changing are they becoming commoditized I mean can you kind of interchange one for another do you expect to bring on more yeah I think it does take work to change out things for other models uh I I think that we're in a period of just rapid development for this field I mean anyone can see that as not only models are getting faster but prices are decreasing and I think that um you know I suspect that we'll start to see some of these model companies specializing more over time uh but right now it definitely feels like a race to me and so it's been a very interesting time to be an observer and a customer in the space let's talk about pricing because there's still sort of this unclear path to monetization for generative AI tools and products um figma AI is going to be in beta mode at first and you're making that free what is that going to cost you and how are you thinking about pricing for an eventual broader roller yeah so the way I addressed this today on the stage was I just try to be as honest as I possibly could with our customers which is to say that hey we're going to eat the cost for 2024 uh because we don't know how people are going to use these features yet we don't know what usage looks like we don't know how many of you will care we don't those cost then well you can watch how the usage is in the beta you can see what the costs are and you can go from there in terms of figuring out what pricing should be and we just have to be very honest that's where we're at uh and we'll figure out the cost and we'll clearly communicate those in 2025 right do you think that the subscription model works that we've seen from some of these other chat Bots is that how you're thinking about it is a subscription or per usage basis oh um I think we'll we'll definitely have to figure that out over time uh we've seen both models work in the space um but I think that the chatot approach is very different from a product approach right and for us what we care about is making sure that we're not just sprinkling you know AI fairy dust on top but rather really bake in AI functionality deep into the product in order to make a designer's life better and so that's what you're seeing us do across our product with AI there's been some news in the Gen AI world this week regarding stability AI this was once a darling that is now trying to revive itself with new funding a new CEO involvement from Sean Parker a figure well known in Tech what makes a successful AI company in design as a CEO of figma that has this wide distribution reach what are you looking for I think so a successful AI company in general right now um you know I think it's hard to know uh just is I think my honest reflection uh especially for the foundational tooling it's a period where I think we'll look back at this uh period likely the same way we look back at the 2000 period that's not to say that it's just a bubble and you know there's a crash but I mean there was Amazon there was Google yeah who are the Amazon and the Googles that we're going to look back on from this era there will be important companies built uh I think that who those companies are I mean that's why we're seeing so many dollars flood into space right um just last question it's been about six months since that deal um fell through with Adobe it was scuttled by Regulators um what's your takeaway and I wonder would you be willing to go through with another maybe the right deal if a different set of regulators were in place well I think that we're very fortunate because looking back at uh the entire period of the acquisition we kept our foot on the gas and that's why we were able to 6 months afterwards uh after it's broken off have an event like this and announce a ton of stuff on stage at config not just our AI features tons of improvements to our Core figma Design editor and also a whole new sze product um and the reason that we're able to do that we kept our foot on the gas we kept accelerating through that acquisition process right and I know you've increased your head count and you even had a billion dollar breakup fee I wonder is an IPO then the eventual goal has that changed I mean look there's two paths in Tech when you take VC funding as you know right so either it's m&a uh or IPO and we tried one of those so yeah you know you can probably guess as to what the other one is that will be in our future uh okay but um but yeah I think that you know right now it's all about as an independent company how do we build for our audience which is people building prodcts and what can we do make as good as possible a great indication that you guys haven't taken your foot off the gas look forward to seeing what you guys do next