This largely appears to be a HTML generator at its core, not necessarily what Figma does with layers/canvases etc. There's no collaborative nature to it either.

It feels like a lightly designed product that moves claude CLI to their backend, generates the HTMLs and renders them in browser on claude.ai website for you. Sure, it accepts your design system as an input from you or imports from your repo, but you could feed the same into claude CLI as well?

I'm curious what exactly it gives besides having claude CLI + prompting it well with your design system + skills.

The IBM/Microsoft analogy is a classic. It’s always fascinating to watch these 'frenemy' dynamics play out. In these cases, the one who owns the direct interface with the end-user usually wins the long game, while the 'infrastructure' partner risks becoming just another utility. Will be interesting to see if Canva can maintain its identity or just become a shell for Claude's output.

Yep agree it looks like it’s taking the existing generated artefact, parameterising it within an inch of its life, exposing a pseudo WYSIWYG for the parameters and calling it a day with a few export options. Not a huge leap from what they’ve got already but it’s a clever adjacent step for sure. Same product new chrome.