AI for design relatively flew under the radar this year.

While everyone obsessed over AI coding tools, design tools quietly got damn good.

Figma entered the space in May with Make. UX Pilot launched and actually understood users. Google entered the race with Stitch - allegedly still an experiment.

Most designers haven’t explored much beyond Make. But those who did have found an edge.

I tested 10 design tools. Here are the winners across the entire design workflow.

We put together an AI Survival Hackbook for 2026: a practical guide on how AI changed work between 2019–2025, what will matter next year, and how professionals are quietly using AI for leverage (not hype).

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Stitch generates the entire product, or entire user flows at the very least, if you prompt it to.

I asked it for a "dashboard" and I got: the dashboard, login flow, settings page, mobile version, and three color schemes.

Then I tested it with "redesign India's Income Tax portal." Remember?

90 seconds later: complete filing experience.

Dashboard, refund status, ITR flow, and past returns view.

It was released May 2025 by Google Labs, roughly same as Figma Make.

Product teams at Stripe and Coinbase use it for first-draft explorations today.

Runner-up: Figma Make (better for mobile, weaker systems thinking)

My favourite part about Make is that it gives you working prototypes.

Designs you can interact with.

The buttons click, modals open and notifications expand.

You can hand this to a stakeholder and they can click through it like a real app.

And it integrates seamlessly into Figma.

The catch: Slowest of the bunch. Acceptable tradeoff since it still saves net time spent.

Runner-up: UX Pilot

Since the income-tax-portal test, UX Pilot has only grown on me.

It has further leaned into being user centric. And I love that.

Remember the portal results?

The fun part: UX Pilot was fastest to generate, had the lowest wow factor, but was the only design I'd actually trust during tax season.

The caveat: Too minimal sometimes. Hides complexity rather than organizing it.

Runner-up: Figma Make (better feature coverage, worse psychology)

Upload a screenshot. Get production-ready React code in 30 seconds.

The v2 update in April 2025 and I know engineers who use it all the time.

The limitation: React + Tailwind only.

Runner-up: Figma Dev Mode with AI (improved a lot, still not as precise)

Anyone can now build those butter-smooth microinteractions that you see on Linear, Raycast and the likes.

Describe the interaction: "Button scales to 0.95 on press, bounces back with elastic easing, ripples outward."

That’s it.

Then you can exports to Lottie/Rive.

It understands animation principles well.

Tell it "make this feel responsive" and it applies: 40ms touch feedback, spring physics, reduced motion preferences.

The barrier: Steep learning curve.

If you've never animated before, expect a week of confusion.

The tool assumes you understand easing curves, timing functions, and spring physics.

Runner-up: Motion Copilot by LottieFiles

Tough category. We only saw tools get really good midway through the year.

And the space is relatively nascent so major competitors including the big ones are still improving and have a long way to go.

Still if I had to pick a winner, I’d choose Make, especially considering how heavily criticised it was at the start.

Seamlessly having integrated into Figma and hence becoming part of most designers’ existing workflows already, it takes the cake.

Runner-up: Framer AI (not a gimmick anymore)

Adobe promised "AI-powered UI design in Photoshop and Illustrator."

What we got: Generative fill for mockups that look like 2015 Dribbble shots.

Adobe simply bolted AI onto tools designed for print and photo editing.

Firefly generates designs that look good in screenshots but fall apart when you try to use them.

It has no inherent understanding of user flows, or any design system awareness

The lesson: AI can't save a tool that's wrong for the job.

This one hurt.

UX Pilot is my personal favorite. I use it more than any other tool.

But "best tool I use" isn't the same as "best tool for designers."

Figma Make wins because of where it lives.

Every designer already uses Figma.

The components and design system live in Figma The team reviews and handoffs happen in Figma It is seamlessly integrated.

And is a good product. Why would anyone bother switching tools?

Teams at actual companies (not just early adopters) adopted Make because it enhanced their existing workflows, so the switching cost was negligible.

UX Pilot makes better individual designs and Stitch is faster for exploration.

But Figma Make is the tool that won the market.

The tools have got good at generating interfaces.

But they just generate the same interface every time.

Stitch, Make, UX Pilot - they all default to the same old SaaS aesthetic i.e, clean, boring and minimal.

None of these tools understand your brand yet.

2026's challenge: brand-aware generative design.

AI that captures your design language and applies it consistently.

The company that cracks that owns the next year, and the decade maybe.

Until next time,
Vaibhav 🤝🏻

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