Canva enables creativity with AI

Our Executive Function series features perspectives from leaders driving transformation through AI.

Launched in 2013, Canva is an online design and visual communication platform with a mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere.

We spoke with Cameron Adams about Canva’s evolution, AI powering more end-to-end workflows, and enabling the creative process with new AI-powered tools.

As a co-founder of Canva, you’ve seen the company evolve through multiple phases, including an embrace of its "AI everywhere" strategy. What are some of the most exciting developments you foresee for Canva in the coming years?

As a successful tech company, Canva continuously adapts to changing user needs and emerging trends by embracing new technologies to stay at the forefront. Our mission to empower the world to design remains technology-agnostic, allowing us to leverage the best available tools to fulfill that goal.

The rise of AI is particularly exciting for us because it allows us to fulfill our mission for our users more efficiently and powerfully.

Initially, AI played a role in more specialized applications, like our background removal tool, which lets users remove backgrounds from images with a single click. Now, with the advent of large language models (LLMs) and agents, we’re seeing AI tackle larger, more complex tasks, allowing for true human-AI collaboration.

This shift from specific, granular use cases to more holistic workflows has opened up new possibilities. Our users can now collaborate with AI to create, iterate, and refine their ideas—from the initial brainstorming stages all the way to the final product, whether it’s a video, website, or presentation. This partnership between humans and AI is a transformative development for us.

“We’re seeing AI be able to help [...] move from those niche use cases into more workflow oriented things, which enable, I think, true partnership between humans and technology.”

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