The quiet reinvention of a $42b business, with Canva’s Cameron Adams

Summary of The quiet reinvention of a $42b business, with Canva’s Cameron Adams

by WaitWhat

23m•July 14, 2026
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Overview of The quiet reinvention of a $42b business, with Canva’s Cameron Adams

In this Rapid Response conversation, Bob Safian speaks with Cameron Adams, Canva’s chief product officer and co-founder, about how Canva has transformed itself from a design-first company into an AI-first platform. Adams explains why Canva is embracing faster product cycles, how it uses AI without removing human creativity, and why the company believes its future lies in helping users reach business and creative goals more directly. The episode also explores Canva’s stance on the so-called “SaaSpocalypse,” its responsibility to global users, and how organizations should discover their own “unfair advantage” in the AI era.

Canva’s AI Reinvention

From design company to AI company

  • Adams says Canva now thinks of itself as “an AI company that does design,” not just a design company that uses AI.
  • The shift is enabled by a deeper bench of AI researchers and machine learning engineers, plus proprietary AI/IP built into the Canva platform.
  • Canva has increased its shipping cadence dramatically, with teams working more like “speedboats” than a slow-moving giant.

Faster cycles, but careful customer experience

  • Internally, Canva ships new tools and features to employees frequently, often daily, to test quality and usability.
  • Public-facing changes are rolled out more cautiously so users can keep getting work done without disruptive interface churn.
  • Smaller improvements, like model updates or workflow enhancements, can be introduced more easily than major app-architecture changes.

How Canva Uses AI Without Replacing Creativity

Human-in-the-driver’s-seat approach

  • Canva’s core principle is that AI should amplify creativity, not automate it away.
  • Adams argues that the best AI experiences help users build on outputs rather than accepting “take it or leave it” results.
  • Everything generated in Canva should remain editable and collaborative.

AI as a creative collaborator

  • Canva AI 2.0 is designed to help users generate designs from prompts, but still leave room for taste, judgment, and iteration.
  • Adams emphasizes that Canva’s job is to help users make outputs more authentic and relevant to real audiences.
  • The company sees conversational AI as a new kind of design challenge, not just a text box with answers.

Canva’s Internal AI Culture

Experimentation with freedom and time

  • Canva lets employees choose whichever AI tools help them most, rather than mandating one model or vendor.
  • Staff are given time to step away from routine work and explore AI use cases.
  • The company ran an “AI Discovery Week,” where employees spent a week testing new ideas instead of doing normal work.

Real business impact already

  • Roughly half of the projects surfaced during AI Discovery Week are already in production internally or externally.
  • One example: Canva’s legal team built a trademark-checking tool that reportedly saved about 1,500 hours of work.

The Bigger Strategic Bet

Why Canva isn’t afraid of the “SaaSpocalypse”

  • Adams says he’s not worried that general-purpose AI will make specialized tools obsolete.
  • He believes people will still want purpose-built products for specific jobs, especially in areas like visual communication and design.
  • Canva’s advantage is depth: a richer, more tailored experience that delivers better outcomes than generic AI tools.

Canva’s unfair advantage

  • Canva’s key edge is its ability to tap into creativity at massive scale.
  • More than 500 designs are created in Canva every second.
  • The company learns from real-world usage and stories across education, business, nonprofits, and personal projects.

Responsibility, Access, and Global Scale

Designing for everyone

  • Canva now serves about a quarter of a billion users every month.
  • Adams says the company feels a deep responsibility to make sure its AI and product work for people across languages, devices, and economic backgrounds.
  • The goal is to help Canva reach over a billion users while remaining accessible and inclusive.

AI should reflect the world

  • Canva wants its AI to represent diverse users and contexts, not just English-speaking or affluent audiences.
  • The company sees broad access and representation as central to its mission.

Advice for Creators and Businesses

Don’t wait for AI to “solve” creativity for you

  • Adams encourages people to take an active role in learning how AI fits into their own creative process.
  • Everyone works differently—some think in images, others in words, sketches, or interfaces.
  • AI should adapt to your process, not force you into one.

Focus on outcomes, not just outputs

  • Canva is moving closer to users’ end goals: getting customers, growing sales, raising impact, recruiting volunteers.
  • The new opportunity is not just making “a flyer” or “a social post,” but helping users understand what they should create to achieve a real objective.

Key Takeaways

  • Canva’s big shift is organizational as much as technological: faster shipping, deeper AI integration, and more experimentation.
  • The company’s philosophy is to use AI to enhance human creativity, not replace it.
  • Specialized, domain-specific AI can outperform general-purpose tools when it’s tied to a clear user need.
  • Canva sees enormous room ahead for growth, innovation, and product evolution.
  • The best way to stay relevant in the AI era is to experiment early and align AI with real creative or business goals.