However, with the development of relational AI, it is required to develop new ways to compete. Co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins insists she always saw AI as a threat to humanity and is excited to take it. This time, Canva purchased text-to-image machine Leonardo. launched its Magic Studio suite of AI design resources. In October, it launched an AI associate, Canva AI, which can help users develop their work—changing data into visuals, for example —or provide design ideas.
The business, which was formerly focused on small businesses and individuals, is now targeting larger business customers, acquiring business-focused design software Affinity in March, and courting Administrators with a rap battle that became so popular for its extraordinary levels of shudder. Alongside lofty growth ambitions, Perkins and her cofounder ( and husband ) Cliff Obrecht have committed to putting most of their equity—totalling 30 percent—into giving back. Perkins explained to Designed how they intend to accomplish both objectives. This discussion has been edited to be more concise and in-depth.
WIRED: What did you think when generative AI started to exist and generative AI immediately made it as easy as entering a quick to create a new image?
MELANIE PERKINS: Canva’s goal has always been to facilitate the integration of your ideas into a pattern and to lessen the conflict between those two factors. We were very early to start using AI in our item because that has always been our goal. We invested strongly in this field ever since we acquired the AI history removal tool Kaleido in 2021, which was the first really significant item for us. Therefore, when I first saw relational AI and LLMs, it was incredibly interesting because I believe it actually aids in achieving our original goal.
There was never a time when we worried that this might pose an existential threat.
No, not at all.
Discuss me through your Artificial strategy.
We have what we call our three-pronged technique. The first step is integrating the most recent and greatest technology in our item to ensure it’s a seamless user experience. Then in places where we need to spend seriously, we’re investing actually deeply, which was why we acquired Leonardo. ai late, why we acquired Kaleido, and why we’re continuing to invest strongly at the forefront of AI. The other is our software habitat, which enables businesses to integrate into Canva’s system and access our extensive user base.
There’s a broader dialogue about the effects of AI on individual creativity. Do you have any issues that AI might go too far, that it might lose some of the fun from design, or that it might risk being very homogenized?
With the advancement of technology, the instruments designers have used over the centuries have evolved, and it resembles what is happening right now.
The world of physical contact has undergone a significant change. When we started out with Canva, 10 years back, we were like,” The country’s going to be visual”. Over the last century, that’s definitely proven to be more true. A professional may produce one billboard for a organization or very little physical content ten years ago, but now almost every touch point is an opportunity to communicate their brand and get visually. It feels like the number of goods a firm creates—even a student or a professor, every job and business —has only grown dramatically. So I don’t believe there’s going to be less room for creativity by any stretch of the imagination.
You’re already leaning into the business market. Where do larger companies primarily use Canva?
It’s quite amazing how popular the use is across these businesses. We’ve done a deep dive with certain organizations, and it’s remarkably spread across all from technology team creating technical graphs to HR teams doing recruitment, to finance teams doing presentations. I believe we’ve hit a special location with sales and marketing teams. And therefore earlier this year, we launched Courses, which was a really interesting access for HR team exclusively.
In this innovative business place, who do you see as your key companies? Do you have any plans to use Google Workspace and Microsoft Office?
Right from the start, we had this Venn chart: On one side is imagination, and on the other part is performance. And you might imagine, right in the center is Canva. We firmly believe that those on the production side and those on the creative side both desire greater creativity. And so we actually found the sweet spot; we saw a significant market gap right away, and we continue to invest quite seriously there.
What about you? How does Canva apply Canva?
Extremely heavily, for practically everything. Our professionals do their executive sheets in Canva, we do all-hands, I do all of my goods mock-ups in it. I’ve used it for judgement boards and vision boards and onboarding and hiring and recruitment—name anything, we’re using Canva for it quite thoroughly.
Your peak valuation was$ 40 billion in 2021. A year later, this was cut to$ 26 billion. What happened?
I believe it was merely a business change. During that period, Canva has continued to grow quickly, both on income and energetic people. We’ve been profitable for seven years as well, so even though the market ]switched to caring ] more about profitability, we were fortunately already on that trend. Over time, markets will benefit various things, and markets will become bubbly and then not bubbly. Simply put, we are often interested in establishing a reliable, stable business that benefits our society. So it’s not a specific bother what’s happening out there in the industry.
You’ve pledged 30 pecent of Canva—the bulk of your and Obrecht’s equity—to doing good in the world. How would you define that?
It seems utterly ironic that there are people who still lack the basic human needs and that we enjoy the happiness we do everywhere else. The first step we’ve taken is to work with GiveDirectly, where we distribute funds directly to people who are in extreme hunger. To date, Canva has given more than$ 30 million to Malawi’s poor. I adore the sense of control that empowers them to put their money to work on their families, their basic human needs, such as sending their kids to college and raising a ceiling over their heads. Although we still have a long way to proceed, we’re really excited to had started the process.
You aim to reach 1 billion people. What’s the strategy to get there?
When we set that as a target a number of years ago, it seemed absolutely crazy, but over the years, it’s becoming less crazy. To accomplish a billion, we need one in five online users in every nation. One in six online users are currently living in the Philippines, and one in eight are living in Australia. In Spain, it’s one in 11. In the USA, it’s one in 12. But at 200 million today, we’re a five of the approach towards the billion number, and if we can continue to grow as fast as we have been, we’ll hopefully getting it.
Any plans to IPO?
It’s definitely something on the horizon.
This article first appeared in the January/February 2025 edition of WIRED UK.
