Figma expands MCP support as Dylan Field raises doubts
Figma added 20 MCP partners at Config India, but Dylan Field said the protocol still has major flaws and could expose services to abuse.
Figma is pushing further into MCP, the model context protocol that lets AI agents connect to outside data sources and tools. At its first Config conference in India, the company announced 20 new MCP partners. At the same time, co-founder Dylan Field made clear he does not see MCP as a finished or ideal standard.
That leaves Figma in the middle of a broader argument over how open AI-connected services should be. Easier access to data and tools is the obvious draw. The risk is that the same openness can also create new ways to misuse that access, as IT-PUB News notes.
Figma adds 20 new MCP partners
At the conference, Figma said it is expanding support for the open-source standard with a new group of partners that includes Amp, ClickUp, Dia, Junie by JetBrains, Linear, Meta Muse, Mistral, Notion, OpenCode, and Sarvam Agents.
MCP is meant to standardize how AI agents connect to external services. In practice, that can make tools work together more easily, especially when an AI system needs access to data stored somewhere else.
The decision matters because design tools often sit at the center of team workflows. If more services connect through the same protocol, users can move between products more easily instead of relying on custom integrations each time.
Dylan Field says MCP has “tons of room for improvement”
Field had already raised doubts about MCP before the announcement. Ahead of it, one of MCP’s co-creators criticized Figma for not supporting the open-source tool Pi. Field responded by pointing to Anthropic, the company behind MCP, and asking why it does not expose its own resources through the protocol.
On X, he said it was interesting that Anthropic does not expose artifacts and other cloud resources created via MCP. He also argued that the discussion is often reduced to open versus closed, while issues such as asymmetric context sharing get less attention.
Field later said Figma plans to support Pi.
At a media briefing, he expanded on the company’s position. Figma wants to be open, he said, but does not consider MCP a perfect protocol. In his words, it still has “tons of room for improvement.”
He also argued that the protocol seems to benefit frontier labs more than others. Still, he acknowledged a simpler reality: many users just want a protocol that lets them access their Figma data more easily.
Figma ties its caution to abuse risks
Figma’s CEO gave the clearest explanation for why the company is not trying to be fully open through MCP. The more data Figma exposes through the protocol, he said, the greater the chance of abuse.
He added that most users do not intend to use MCP or Figma data maliciously. Even so, the company has to plan for the possibility that some people will try to misuse that access.
That helps explain Figma’s balancing act. The company wants to support the MCP ecosystem, but not by opening too much data too quickly.
Figma backs MCP while questioning how open it should be
The exchange around Figma and MCP points to a familiar AI trade-off. The same systems that make products more useful can also make them harder to secure.
For users, broader MCP support could mean easier access to Figma data and smoother links with other tools. For companies, the same openness raises harder questions about how much data should be exposed — and who should be allowed to use it.
Figma’s latest announcement shows it is still moving ahead with MCP support. But the comments from Field and the company’s CEO also make clear that this is not a wholehearted embrace of the standard. Figma sees value in MCP, while treating its limits and abuse risks as part of the deal.
