Config 2026: What It Feels Like to Be in the Room

10,000 designers, developers, and product builders. 89 nationalities. 1,200 people on staff. Streets closed around Moscone Center(SF).

Announcements and the talks

Figma dropped a lot. New canvas capabilities that close the gap between design and code in ways that actually make sense for how teams work. Cool stuff, and most of it is already being covered everywhere, so I will leave it at that.

What stood out more to me was the speaker lineup. Instagram, Spotify, Microsoft, Notion, Anthropic, Google, GitHub and more, all in the same building, all talking about the same shift from different angles. Not just product updates. Real conversations about what the designer’s role looks like when AI is handling more of the execution.

Every talk eventually came back to the same idea: AI can generate, iterate, and speed things up. What it cannot do is understand your users, define what should be built, or make the hard call when things get complicated. That is still the job.

Outside the keynote

The venue was set up in a way that made it easy to stay longer than planned. Stands where you could talk directly with experts from tools in the Figma ecosystem, games and activations where you could actually try the new features hands-on, not just watch a demo. The kind of setup where you end up in a conversation you did not expect and leave with three tabs open and two new contacts.

What surprised me most was how approachable everyone was. No one was performing. People were genuinely happy to talk, share what they were working on, and hear what you had to say.

What I took back

Systems thinking and product judgment are getting more valuable, not less. The faster execution gets, the more the decisions matter.

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