Figma, a design software company, has bought the team behind Bud, an AI tool that helps people build apps using simple instructions instead of writing code. Bud's service will close on July 18, 2026. Users need to save or move their projects before that date.

Bud's CEO Kevin Lu announced the deal on social media without saying how much money was involved. Figma has not made a public statement about the purchase.

Bud's story is relatively short. It started as Orchids, a tool that let people describe what they wanted an app to do, and the AI would build it for them — for phones, websites, Slack, and web browsers. The company later changed its name to Bud and expanded into something larger: an AI agent that could browse the web, connect to other services, and complete tasks on its own.

That change is important. Companies building these AI coding tools have been expanding what their software can do because the AI models are getting smarter very quickly — faster than the original tools can keep up with. Bud followed the same path.

Before the acquisition, there was a security problem. Earlier in 2026, the BBC reported that apps made with Orchids had vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit. For people using Bud or Orchids, this raises a real concern: when a company buys another company for its team and technology, sometimes technical problems come along with it. With the deadline just weeks away, teams using these tools should check whether their apps could be at risk before the service disappears.

Figma is a design company, so this acquisition means it's moving further into the business of writing code and building AI agents — something many other software companies are doing. Figma hasn't explained how Bud's technology will fit into its existing products or how many people it hired.

For anyone using Bud or Orchids, the situation is straightforward: save your work before July 18, 2026, or you'll lose access. This is tight timing, especially for teams that built real products or customer-facing apps on what was originally sold as a simple prototyping tool. It's a good reminder that relying on any outside tool or service — no matter how convenient — comes with risk if that company changes hands or shuts down.

Across the industry, companies that sell AI coding tools are being bought up by larger software companies. This suggests those larger companies see AI coding technology as valuable talent and code worth acquiring, rather than something to compete against directly. It's still early to say whether smaller, independent AI coding tools will survive or fade away.

For anyone thinking about using an AI coding tool, the key lesson is this: check whether the company behind it will still exist in a year or two. With these tools changing hands so quickly, assuming they'll stick around is no longer safe.