The picker looks broken. It is only empty, and the fix is not where you will look for it.
Open Choose design system on a fresh account and it is empty. Open it on an account with ten published design systems and it is still empty. This is the single most confusing thing about Slides today, and it is not a bug.
What is actually happening
Design systems published before Claude Design moved into artifacts are tagged Legacy. A legacy system does not appear in the picker inside a Slides or Design artifact. It still exists, it is still published, and it is still usable. It just cannot reach the new surfaces until it is migrated.
The path a designer naturally takes leads nowhere. The picker offers Manage design systems, which opens Claude settings, which lists every system you own, none of which the picker will show. The row menu there offers only one thing: open legacy version. There is no migrate action in settings.
Go to the Artifacts page
The banner at the top reads that Claude Design lives there now, and that new Slides and Design projects are created as artifacts.
Click Migrate team design systems
It never asks which ones. One button takes everything eligible. A dialog reports progress, with Migrating now and Migrated sections, and you can close it while it keeps running.
Check what actually moved
Not everything qualifies. An account showing ten legacy systems in settings migrated three. Read the dialog rather than assuming your whole library came across.
Reopen the picker
A migrated system now appears in the list inside a Slides artifact. If it does not, it did not migrate.
A legacy system is confined, not broken. Open it from Design systems in settings, choose open legacy version, and use the New design button on the system page. Everything is intact there: colours, type, components, spacing and UI kit. You just cannot use it from an artifact until it is migrated.
You can get a system into the picker
- Know why the picker looks empty
- Know the migration lives in the banner, not in settings
- Know the workaround if migration is not done
Next: what happens when you skip the system entirely.