Figma Config 2024: how the design platform repositioned after the blocked Adobe acquisition

Where Figma was after the Adobe-deal collapse

Adobe and Figma announced the termination of their $20 billion acquisition agreement on December 17/18, 2023, after EU and UK regulators indicated they would not approve the deal. Adobe paid Figma a $1 billion breakup fee as specified in the deal agreement. Figma remained independent — Dylan Field as CEO and the existing leadership team retained control of the company, with $1 billion of new capital on the balance sheet.

The strategic question for 2024 was how Figma would compete against Adobe (which retained the resources and incentive to invest more heavily in Adobe XD and broader design-tool capabilities), against AI-first design tools (Magic Patterns, Galileo AI, Uizard, others) that were emerging in 2023-2024, and against the broader expectation that AI would reshape design workflows. The Config 2024 announcements were Figma's answer.

The Config 2024 announcements

Figma AI introduced text-to-design (generate UI mocks from prompts), visual search (find designs by screenshot, frame, or sketch), AI image generation, copy generation, layer renaming, and prototype-to-interaction features. The feature set targeted both the everyday-design-friction layer (renaming layers, generating placeholder copy, finding past work) and the more ambitious end-to-end workflow (text-to-design as a way to skip the blank canvas).

UI3 was a substantial interface redesign — the third major UI revision in Figma's history. The new interface featured a more immersive canvas, component-centered UI organisation, and a refreshed icon set. The redesign was important because it signaled the company was investing in fundamental product experience rather than just adding incremental features. Figma Slides launched as a new product in the Figma family, targeting collaborative presentations as a separate use case from design files. Dev Mode received major updates including a Ready for Dev view, focus inspection, and the ability to surface component code from connected design systems.

How Config 2024 repositioned Figma

The strategic effect of Config 2024 was significant. Figma demonstrated to customers (especially enterprise customers whose Adobe-replacement decisions had been on hold during the acquisition process), employees (who had been recruited and retained partly on the acquisition path), and investors that the company could ship at the cadence and scope of an acquirer. The Adobe-Figma deal had collapsed not because of a Figma failure but because of regulatory concerns; Config 2024 made the case that Figma did not need Adobe to be a substantial product company.

In July 2025, Figma filed for an IPO — the strategic outcome that the post-Adobe-collapse year had been building toward. The Config 2024 announcements were structurally important to the IPO narrative because they showed sustained product execution and credible AI strategy. The IPO and subsequent trading performance will be the long-term test of whether Figma's post-Adobe strategy held up.

How RGM thinks about post-deal-collapse strategy

When clients ask about strategy after a planned acquisition has collapsed, the Figma Config 2024 case is the structural example of how to convert a setback into a positioning win. Three lessons. First, the breakup fee was capital that the company could deploy aggressively into product investment. Figma used the $1 billion to ship product faster, not just to extend runway. Second, the announcements were comprehensive across multiple product lines (AI, UI redesign, new product, dev tools) rather than incremental, which signalled scope and commitment. Third, the post-collapse positioning was forward-looking ("we are now an independent AI-first design platform") rather than backward-looking ("we were almost acquired but here we are"). The forward framing reset stakeholder expectations rather than perpetuating the acquisition narrative.

The pattern is hard to copy without the capital cushion (the breakup fee), the existing product credibility (Figma had earned its category-leader position before the Adobe deal), and the leadership continuity (Dylan Field remained CEO throughout). Companies emerging from deal collapses without those advantages typically struggle to convert the setback into a positioning win.

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