Figma Co-founder and CEO Dylan Field said Thursday that artificial intelligence poses no serious threat to the future of the design software company, which is on the verge of making its open market debut.
“We're hoping for the singularity, “Hey, super intelligence is coming and we can do things that humans can't,” Field told CNBC's “Squawk Box.” “It's hard to believe we'll approach it right now, but that doesn't mean it's off the picture.”
Figma is scheduled to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday under the ticker symbol “Ficus.” Last week, the company estimated it would price the stock in the $25-$28 range, surpassing that range by $33 per share on Wednesday.
The offering values Figma, ranked 45th on this year's CNBC Disruptor 50 list, at $19.3 billion.
The company was to be acquired Adobe At $20 billion, however, the deal was removed in December 2023 after regulators opposed it.
So-called superintelligence is a type of artificial intelligence that becomes more powerful than the human brain, and has recently become a growing focus among technology companies.
Field told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin that super intelligence would be difficult to replace due to the company's “complex” graphics engine and other aspects of its technology.
“I don't think that's something we can learn from looking at code and different places on the internet,” Field said. “This is not part of the pre-training data mix. I think it's very difficult to do that on a large scale.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared in a memo on Wednesday that the technology will act as a tool for “individual empowerment” around automation and efficiency.
Meta recently created a lab that pursues super intelligence, and Zuckerberg has poured billions of dollars into building a roster of top AI talent.
– CNBC's Jordan Novet contributed a report to this story.
