The creative process with AI involves exploring many options, most of which are imperfect. This makes the collaboration a version control problem. Users need tools to easily branch, suggest, review, and merge ideas, much like developers use Git, to manage the AI's prolific but often flawed output.

In large companies, designers overwhelmingly use local AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude) over cloud-based ones (Replit, V0). The key advantage is using the company's real production app as a "starting place," which eliminates the need to recreate screens or components from scratch for every prototype.

Vercel's Pranati Perry explains that tools like V0 occupy a new space between static design (Figma) and development. They enable designers and PMs to create interactive prototypes that better communicate intent, supplement PRDs, and explore dynamic states without requiring full engineering resources.

AI-powered "vibe coding" is reversing the design workflow. Instead of starting in Figma, designers now build functional prototypes directly with code-generating tools. Figma has shifted from being the first step (exploration) to the last step (fine-tuning the final 20% of pixel-perfect details).

While forked codebases empower designers with AI tools, they create a new operational cost. Teams must now maintain two copies of the app—the real one and the designer one—which risks falling out of date. This mirrors the long-standing problem of syncing Figma design systems with production code.

The handoff between AI generation and manual refinement is a major friction point. Tools like Subframe solve this by allowing users to seamlessly switch between an 'Ask AI' mode for generative tasks and a 'Design' mode for manual, Figma-like adjustments on the same canvas.

Early user research showed designers did not want a collaborative, multiplayer tool. However, Figma's web-based architecture made a single-player experience technically terrible (e.g., tabs constantly reloading). They were forced by the technology to build multiplayer functionality, which ultimately became their key differentiator, proving the platform's needs can override initial user requests.

Instead of creating static mockups in Figma, Cursor's design team prototypes directly in their AI code editor. This allows them to interact with the "life states of the app" and get a more realistic feel for the product, bridging the gap between design and engineering.

Cursor's visual editor allows designers to make minor adjustments to UI elements like padding and spacing directly, bypassing the need for constant AI prompting. This speeds up experimentation but doesn't replace dedicated design tools like Figma.