Shares of Figma climbed about 14% before the market opened on Thursday after the company released an optimistic revenue projection and elaborated on how it plans to commercialize artificial intelligence features within its design platform.
Management highlighted Figma's broad adoption among both enterprise customers and freelance designers, noting that the product supports the entire creative workflow - from early-stage ideation and collaborative brainstorming to integrating designs with code and delivering finished work on a single platform. That end-to-end positioning is central to the company’s push to expand usage and capture more spending from design teams.
As part of that strategy, Figma has been embedding AI into the product to draw in additional users - an approach the company shares with a larger competitor, Adobe - and to create new revenue streams tied to AI usage. For 2026, Figma projected revenue between $1.36 billion and $1.37 billion, versus consensus estimates of $1.29 billion compiled by LSEG.
Beginning in March, the company will adopt a hybrid monetization model that includes the sale of AI credits. In an interview on Wednesday, Figma’s chief financial officer Praveer Melwani said: "We will begin enforcing credit limits ... for power users that go over those embedded credit limits, we’ll be selling add-ons." The move signals a shift toward usage-based charges for intensive AI consumers while keeping core functionality available on the platform.
At the same time, the company acknowledged rising expense pressures. Investments in AI capabilities, broader business operations and stock-based compensation have lifted overall costs. Executives have previously warned that spending on AI will weigh on gross margins.
If the recent premarket gains persist, the stock's move would translate to an increase of more than $1.7 billion in the company's market value. The combination of stronger-than-expected top-line guidance and a clearer path to monetize AI appears to have driven investor enthusiasm ahead of the regular session.
Context and market implications
- Figma’s forecast exceeds market expectations and underscores the revenue potential tied to expanded AI functionality.
- The planned AI-credit model introduces a new usage-based revenue lever that could alter how high-volume users are billed.
- Rising costs related to AI investment and compensation will present margin headwinds even as revenue accelerates.