Figma co-founder Dylan Field has raised questions about the limitations of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) - the open standard that governs how artificial intelligence agents connect to external data sources and tools - even as his company continues to deepen its investment in the technology.

At Figma's inaugural Config conference held in India, the design software company announced 20 new MCP partners. The list includes Amp, ClickUp, Dia, Junie by JetBrains, Linear, Meta Muse, Mistral, Notion, OpenCode, and Sarvam Agents, among others. The expansion signals a clear commitment to growing the MCP ecosystem, even as Field has publicly aired reservations about the protocol's design and underlying dynamics.

A Public Debate Over Openness and Asymmetry

Field's skepticism around MCP surfaced publicly in the days leading up to the conference announcement. The friction began when one of MCP's co-creators publicly criticized Figma for not supporting the open-source tool Pi. In his response, Field turned the spotlight onto Anthropic - the AI safety company behind the MCP standard - questioning why it does not make its own resources available through the very protocol it created.

Writing on X, Field noted: "I find it interesting that Anthropic (creators of MCP standard) do not expose artifacts / other cloud resources created via MCP. The debate is framed as open vs closed. Everyone always prefers open... obviously. And meanwhile issues of asymmetric context sharing are ignored."

Field later clarified that Figma does plan to add support for Pi, indicating the original criticism had been addressed. Still, his broader point about unequal participation in the MCP ecosystem remained on the table.

"Can you help me understand why you don't make various Anthropic resources available via MCP? Maybe I'm missing something."

Field Addresses the Protocol's Shortcomings Directly

During a media briefing held alongside the conference, Field was asked directly about the ongoing debate. He acknowledged both Figma's genuine interest in openness and his view that MCP, in its current form, falls short of being an ideal standard.

"I'm really excited about what we're doing in terms of opening up our ecosystem," Field said. "I also think that MCP is not a perfect protocol. And I think that it is something that has tons of room for improvement. It is advantaged more to frontier labs. Also, I understand everyone online who just wants a protocol that they can use when they want to use their Figma data, and I want them to use it, too."

His comments point to a structural concern - that MCP, as currently designed, tends to benefit large frontier AI laboratories more than independent developers or smaller platforms. This kind of imbalance, Field suggested, deserves more attention in conversations that often default to a simple open-versus-closed framing.

Balancing Openness Against the Risk of Abuse

Field also addressed why Figma has not moved toward full openness when it comes to exposing data through MCP. The core concern, he explained, is the relationship between data exposure and the potential for misuse. The more data Figma makes accessible through the protocol, the greater the surface area for potential abuse.

He was careful to note that the vast majority of users have no harmful intentions when working with Figma data or MCP integrations. Nevertheless, the company is obligated to account for edge cases and bad actors when making decisions about how much data to surface through any given protocol or integration layer.

The position reflects a tension that many software platforms face as AI-driven interoperability becomes more common - the pull toward maximum openness on one side, and the practical necessity of managing risk on the other. For Figma, navigating that balance appears to be an ongoing process, one that Field is willing to discuss publicly even when it puts him at odds with the broader open-source community's expectations.

MCP, which has gained significant traction as a standardized interface for AI agents to interact with external services, continues to evolve. Figma's expanded list of MCP partners suggests the company sees long-term value in the standard, even as its leadership pushes for improvements to how the protocol is governed and how participation within it is structured across the industry.