What We Learned at Config 2025

By Andy Hatch

Just a few years ago, Figma was the scrappy upstart taking on legacy tools. Today, it’s the category leader—an essential part of every designer’s daily workflow. Config 2025 made that clear, drawing over 8,000 people to San Francisco and expanding the conference to London for the first time following overwhelming demand. The event’s significance was underscored by speakers from Pixar, General Motors, Disney, and the NFL, offering clear evidence of Figma’s broad and growing influence. 

Figma’s rise is fueled by a thriving community and a product that keeps evolving—now reaching beyond design into marketing, systems, and the entire design-to-development workflow.

Across sessions, conversations, and demos, I saw three clear trends emerging that demonstrate how digital product design is evolving, and what the best teams are doing to stay ahead.

1. AI is becoming an everyday utility

Figma’s AI announcements this year—such as Make and Buzz—showed how AI is shifting from novelty to real workflow integration. From accelerating conceptual design with generated UI to helping teams scale branded marketing content, AI is becoming a practical tool for speeding up everyday work. 

The bigger opportunity lies in how teams use it. And not as a replacement for design craft, but as a way to automate the repetitive and free up space for higher-value problem-solving.

2. Design systems are no longer optional—they’re foundational

Design systems took center stage again this year, reflecting how essential they’ve become for scaling product quality across organizations. Figma’s continued investments in supporting design system work—like advanced variables, tokens, system-wide theming, and the newly announced Grid feature—make it easier for teams to build and manage systems that connect design and code. It’s a sign of how digital product design has matured: products are no longer static launches but living platforms that evolve alongside business needs.

This theme came through in a panel on the evolution of brand identities. Mike Abbink, Executive Director of Design, Craft at General Motors, highlighted how design systems aren’t just for UX consistency—they’re becoming the connective tissue between product and brand. A successful design system can facilitate brand governance while remaining adaptable to the wide range of digital product use cases that continue to evolve.

Whether shaping digital touchpoints or scaling marketing efforts, systems thinking is now central to how the best teams work. For clients, this reinforces a strategic truth: the more systematic the foundation, the faster and more consistently product teams can ship.

3. The design-to-development gap is closing

If there’s one takeaway from Config 2025 that feels impossible to ignore, it’s the narrowing gap between design and development. Figma’s role as the platform where design and production converge is clearer than ever.

This year’s announcements hint at a future where design and production aren’t separate phases at all, and where AI enables a more central role for design teams as architects of the entire digital product workflow.

What used to be a handoff is becoming more of a handshake. Designers are no longer limited to producing static screens—they’re building scalable systems that influence performance, maintainability, and how teams ship features.

The best product design teams will be those who understand not just the craft of design, but also the structure and scalability of systems. And with tools like Figma and the continued integration of AI assistance into everyday workflows, the gap between thinking and shipping will continue to shrink. 

What Config 2025 signals for the industry

Config 2025 made it clear that the definition of product design is expanding—and so is Figma’s role in shaping it. 

The landscape is changing fundamentally as teams move past experimentation and into mature, integrated workflows, with tools like Figma and the power of AI embedded in every stage. Design systems now shape not just products, but brand and business strategy, and longstanding boundaries between design and development are dissolving—putting creative teams at the heart of product delivery.

For businesses, this shift raises the bar: the best product teams are those that combine creativity, systems thinking, and technical fluency. For product managers, designers, and engineers, it’s a reminder that staying ahead isn’t just about knowing the tools, but about guiding teams to use them in ways that unlock speed, scale, and real product impact.

About the Author

Andy Hatch is a Director of Product Management at Work & Co. He helps teams navigate ambiguity to transform business challenges and emerging technologies into user-centered products.