91% of designers now use AI weekly, tools still shift

The State of AI Design report found 91% of designers now use AI at least weekly, up from 54% a year prior. But nearly half still haven't settled on go-to tools — this space hasn't stabilised yet.

The State of AI Design report tracked a real shift: 91% of designers now use AI weekly, up from 54% a year earlier — a 37-point jump. But almost half of respondents say they're still searching for their go-to tools. Claude's reportedly overtaken ChatGPT for many designers, Figma's role in the stack has shifted, and coding tools (not just image generators) are becoming part of the daily process. For someone on Figma and Penpot, the takeaway isn't "install everything new" — it's that fluency with one or two AI tools, used consistently on real work, beats chasing every release. The market's still shaking out; you don't need to have it figured out either.

Related in Design tools

Adoption

Penpot's open-source pitch is maturing, not just noise

Penpot keeps getting pitched as the open-source Figma alternative — built on SVG/CSS, self-hostable, no vendor lock-in. It's real and improving, but it's adoption-stage, not a mass switch yet.

medium.com12 Aug

Adoption

Penpot hype cooled — most teams are still on Figma

A r/web_design thread notes the Penpot-vs-Figma buzz spiked when the Adobe acquisition talks were live, then faded once the deal collapsed. Real migrations are still rare, even among people curious enough to try it.

reddit.com15 Aug

Adoption

A plugin now bridges your Figma and Penpot files

A community-built Figma plugin lets you export files across to Penpot, so you can test the open-source alternative without abandoning your existing Figma work. It's unofficial and early, so treat it as an experiment, not a production workflow.

figma.com10 Sep