This is a synthesis of public discussion on the Figma Forum and the Adobe Community, not a tested or maker-announced fact, and not a survey of every designer. Both are support forums, so they lean toward complaints. Even so, the pattern is hard to miss: since September, a steady run of threads on both forums boils down to one question. An AI prompt showed up in the middle of my work, so how do I close it?
What designers are saying
On the Figma Forum, the complaints center on the agent’s on-canvas prompt. At least five separate threads, started between September 10 and October 20, describe the same thing: one stray click on the sparkle icon opens a prompt box that covers part of the canvas and doesn’t have an obvious way out. The threads are still active: three of them got new replies this week, the latest on November 6.
People’s experiences with closing it differ, which is part of the frustration. Some say Escape or clicking the canvas works. Others, including people on the desktop app, say neither does, and that the only ways out are typing something into the box first, taking an AI action, or reloading the file. One thread wonders whether the missing close button is a dark pattern. Most are less heated and just want a visible way to dismiss it.
Figma staff and community helpers have replied in most of these threads. The usual answer is a toggle under Main menu > Preferences that turns off the on-canvas prompt. Replies name it two ways, “Show AI Chat on canvas” in some and “Show Agents on canvas” in others, and say the agent stays available in the left sidebar. In September, a support reply said the team knows there isn’t a clear way to dismiss the box and is exploring one. No fix has been announced in any of these threads. A common response to the toggle is that it misses the point: people want to keep the icon and just close the box after a misclick.
The Adobe Community discussion goes further. A Photoshop thread from late August asks how to hide the switch between the new AI Assisted editor and the Pro Editor. The answer is a checkbox the original poster found under Preferences > Interface, but the replies that follow, running into late October, are less about the setting than about the habit behind it: new AI features arriving switched on, followed by a fresh round of “how do I disable this” posts. A feature request asking for a non-AI option across Adobe’s apps had 89 votes when we read it, with replies through mid-October asking for a single switch for every app. An Adobe staff reply pinned there says Photoshop has no global AI-off setting today, though some tools, like the Remove Tool, let you turn generative AI off.
Some of the Adobe complaints go beyond clutter. In one reply to the Photoshop 27.11 announcement, the argument is that hiding entry points isn’t enough if the AI features still use your computer’s resources, and that there should be a real on and off switch. Adobe staff replied in mid-October that the feedback was passed to the Photoshop team, with no release date.
Not everyone agrees. In the same feature request, some people push back on the idea of an AI-free Photoshop, pointing to long-standing tools like Content-Aware Fill and sky replacement as useful features that don’t get in the way. The split is less about AI features themselves and more about whether you get to choose when they appear.
Why it matters for designers
If this is happening to you, there’s usually a fix, and it’s usually in Preferences. In Figma, look for the on-canvas AI chat or agents toggle. If the prompt box is already open and won’t go away, a Figma Ambassador’s tip from November 6 is to click into its input field first and then press Escape. In Photoshop, the AI Assisted editor switch is under Preferences > Interface. You don’t have to accept a prompt box covering your canvas.
For anyone designing products, this is a useful case study. Both companies are pushing AI entry points onto the main canvas where they’ll get noticed. The forums show the cost: when something appears uninvited, opens on a misclick, and has no visible close button, people stop judging the feature and start looking for the off switch. Being able to dismiss something easily is basic interface design, and these threads show what happens without it.
What to watch out for
This reflects two support forums, which attract people with problems, so it overstates how many designers are bothered overall. Plenty of people use these features happily and never post.
The settings also shift between versions. Figma’s own replies name the toggle two ways, and in the Photoshop thread, one person couldn’t see the option at all. Adobe’s suggestion there was to update. If you can’t find the setting, check you’re on the latest version first.
And the closest anyone has come to a fix is acknowledgment. Figma says it’s exploring a clearer way to dismiss the prompt, and Adobe says it passed the on-off request along, but neither has given a date.
