Figma takes a hit as Google doubles down on ‘vibe design’

Google Labs announced new features for its vibe design tool Stitch, as competition in the interface design tool space grows.

BY María José Gutierrez Chavez

This week, Google announced new features for its AI-powered interface tool Stitch—in the process, it signaled that it’s going all-in on “vibe design.”

“We are evolving Stitch into an AI-native software design canvas,” Rustin Banks, product manager at Google Labs, wrote on the company’s blog, The Keyword. “With it, anyone can create, iterate, and collaborate to turn natural language into high-fidelity UI designs.”

Launched last March during the annual Google I/O developer conference, Stitch sets out to give people an accessible tool for creating front-end user interface designs for projects like websites or mobile apps. While late to a market already occupied by competitors like Figma and Cursor, Stitch’s new features are catching the industry’s attention and posing a threat to incumbent platforms that are scrambling to keep up with the relentless pace of AI design software updates.

The announcement outlined five major AI-powered updates to the platform, including integrations with other artificial intelligence platforms, voice capabilities, and design agents. Among the major updates is a complete redesign of Stitch’s UI: an infinite canvas similar to Figma’s that allows for all project iterations to be in one space. The canvas also allows text, images, or code to be added to the canvas as context.

Google also introduced AI agents, with a design agent tailored for design reasoning, as well as an agent manager to keep tasks and workflows organized when the agents are working on multiple ideas at once.

Stitch expanded its existing design system tool kit, which allows users to import or export design rules and use, and can now be used with DESIGN.md, an agent-friendly markdown file.

“This lets you, for instance, apply your designs to a different Stitch project so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you start,” writes Banks.

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