Claude Design is Anthropic’s tool, launched April 17, 2026, that builds designs, prototypes, slides and one-pagers from a description, and it now runs inside any Claude conversation on every plan, including Free, with usage counted against your plan’s limits.
Claude Design compared with the tools PMs use today
| Tool you use today | What PMs use it for | What Claude Design changes | What stays the same |
|---|---|---|---|
| Figma | The design system and precise design work | Claude Design builds its own design system by reading your codebase and design files | Figma stays the source of truth for the system, and designers still build the components |
| v0, Lovable, Figma Make and Replit | Clickable prototypes and hosted apps | Prototypes and decks come out of one tool with your brand already applied | In my April 2026 read, v0 is faster for production React code and Lovable is simpler for a hosted app |
| Figma Slides, PowerPoint and Keynote | Board updates, investor updates, product reviews | A 12-slide deck in 8 minutes in my test, with the PPTX export ready and a Canva version one click away | PowerPoint and Keynote are still where a deck gets its last edits |
The Figma row in the middle column comes from Anthropic’s launch post. The rest of the table is my read from 20 sessions in April 2026, written up in my paid Claude Design guide. The 8-minute deck is my own test.
What Claude Design is
Anthropic’s launch post calls it a new Anthropic Labs product for collaborating with Claude on visual work: designs, prototypes, slides and one-pagers. You describe what you need, Claude builds a first version, and you refine it by conversation, inline comments, direct edits or custom sliders that Claude makes for you.
It starts from a text prompt, from uploaded images and documents (DOCX, PPTX and XLSX), or from your codebase, and a web capture tool grabs elements from your own site so prototypes look like the real product. When a design is ready, Claude packages a handoff bundle that you can pass to Claude Code with one instruction. I cover that side on my page about how I set up Claude Code.
At launch the app lived at claude.ai/design and showed four tabs. I used two of them, Prototype and Slide deck, and I would leave From template and Other alone for the first month. Anthropic now says Claude Design works in every conversation with Claude, in the Artifacts tab and in Claude Code, and that the standalone site closes on December 14, 2026. The tabs and tools below are from my April 2026 sessions in that standalone app.
Who can use Claude Design and what it costs
Anthropic’s Help Center says Claude Design is available on Free, Pro, Max, Ultra, Team and Enterprise plans and is on by default. On Enterprise plans it turned on by default on October 15, 2026, except in HIPAA-enabled organizations, and admins manage it in Organization settings under Artifacts. At launch on April 17, 2026 it was a research preview for Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise subscribers only.
The cost shows up in usage. Anthropic says work made in Claude Design counts toward your plan’s usage limits, and a full deck or design uses more of your limit than a typical message. In my April 2026 tests, one hi-fi prototype or one 10-slide deck ran roughly $2 to $7 in tokens, and daily use will run through a Pro plan’s limits faster than you expect. If you plan to use it every day, check your plan’s limits before your first long session.
Your first prototype
Pick the Prototype tab. Choose High Fidelity. In my testing, Wireframe mode rarely saved me time.
Describe the user and what they are trying to do in a few sentences, then list what the screens must show. If you have a layout you like, a screenshot works better than words. I have never gotten a better first draft from a verbal description than from a screenshot. Strip the text and images out of the screenshot first, so Claude copies only the layout.
Then refine in a fixed order, which saves tokens:
- Tweaks first. A change to color or style here applies to every screen at once.
- Edit second. Click the element and type. In my sessions, that took about 3 seconds and cost no tokens, while a comment for the same fix cost tokens.
- Comments last. Save these for structure, such as a missing step, and send several changes in one batch. Comments were buggy during the research preview, so if one gets stuck, paste the instruction into the chat instead.
Your first deck
Pick the Slide deck tab and look at two toggles before you click Create. The design system dropdown applies your brand. The speaker notes toggle changes how dense the slides are: on gives you less text per slide with notes written separately, which suits a live presentation, and off packs the content onto the slides for decks people read alone.
I built a 12-slide quarterly roadmap deck in eight minutes this way. Anthropic lists exports to PPTX, PDF, Canva and standalone HTML.
Build a design system first
A design system is what makes the output look like your company. Anthropic says Claude builds one during onboarding from your codebase and design files, and every project after that uses your colors, typography and components.
Anthropic’s Help Center says design systems built in the standalone app can move over to Claude, and that you should move them before the standalone site closes on December 14, 2026. The new version manages them under Settings, then Design Systems.
Two setup details from my paid guide. When you attach a GitHub repo, paste the URL of the frontend subfolder so Claude picks up only frontend files. A Figma file can have up to 75 pages, so remove the page templates before you upload, because large files burn tokens before generation starts.
What still goes to a designer
In my April 2026 sessions the first pass got me about 80% of the way. Do internal tools, wireframes, decks, feature flows and stakeholder prototypes yourself, and bring in a designer for brand-defining surfaces, custom illustration, complex motion or anything where design is your competitive moat. The handoff starts from the Claude Design output, so the designer begins with a built first pass.
I wrote about the habit this builds in Taste at Speed. Generating several directions and killing most of them builds your judgment faster than reviewing one spec a month.
Where to go next
My full Claude Design guide walks through both use cases screen by screen, and the free GitHub toolkit has copy-paste prompts for board decks, investor demos, launch pages, feature flows, stakeholder reviews and admin dashboards. For the older tools in this category, see my AI prototyping comparison. The skills side of working with Claude is in my page on Claude Code skills and the Claude stack for PMs episode.
Land a PM Job is the 12-week cohort I run for PMs who want to build with AI and win offers. The next one starts November 23, 2026. It has 2-3 live sessions a week and six 1:1 coaching sessions, and the coaching team reviews your resume, LinkedIn, GitHub and portfolio live on your real materials. I write about this at www.news.aakashg.com.
Claude Design FAQ
What is Claude Design?
Claude Design is a product from Anthropic Labs, launched April 17, 2026 as a research preview and now available in any Claude conversation, that builds prototypes, slide decks, one-pagers and other visual work from a description and lets you refine them by chat, inline comments, direct edits or custom sliders.
Is Claude Design free?
Yes, with limits. Anthropic says Claude Design is available on Free, Pro, Max, Ultra, Team and Enterprise plans, and the work counts toward your plan’s usage limits, with a full deck or design using more of your limit than a typical message. In my April 2026 tests, one hi-fi prototype or 10-slide deck cost roughly $2 to $7 in tokens.
Is Claude Design a replacement for Figma?
No. In my April 2026 read it replaces the AI prototyping and slide tools PMs reach for, while Figma stays the source of truth for the design system and the place where designers do precise work. Claude Design can read your Figma files to build its own design system.
Can Claude Design export to PowerPoint?
Yes. Anthropic lists exports to PPTX, PDF, Canva and standalone HTML, and my 12-slide test deck had its PPTX export ready eight minutes after I started.
Can I hand a Claude Design prototype to Claude Code?
Yes. Anthropic says that when a design is ready, Claude packages everything into a handoff bundle you can pass to Claude Code with one instruction.
