On April 14, Mike Krieger, who serves as Anthropic’s chief product officer, stepped down from his board position at Figma, an interface design company.
The $10 billion publicly traded company revealed his resignation to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on the same day that The Information reported that Anthropic’s upcoming Opus 4.7 model is expected to feature design tools that might rival Figma’s core product.
Figma develops a widely used tool for user experience designers crafting interfaces for websites and applications. The company has previously partnered extensively with Anthropic to embed the cutting-edge AI lab’s models into its offerings, assisting its users.
Krieger, known for co-founding Instagram and the AI-driven news application Artifact, assumed the role of Anthropic’s chief product executive in 2024, having joined Figma’s board less than a year prior.
Krieger’s resignation and the anticipated release of new design tools will provide additional evidence for investors concerned about the SAASpocalypse—the idea that major AI research labs will eventually control the software industry, a theory that has sometimes disrupted public markets this year. The iShares main software ETF, IGV, has seen an almost 18% decline this year.
Meanwhile, Anthropic is declining investment offers that value the company at $800 billion—which is over twice its valuation from its latest funding round earlier this year.
Nevertheless, firms such as Anthropic and OpenAI must still demonstrate that their highly advanced models can genuinely mirror the specialized knowledge and client relationships of well-established software companies. Figma’s stock has risen by 5% since Krieger’s resignation was announced, but the impact of the upcoming Opus release remains to be seen.