Topic
39 facts from 2 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
2011
In 2011 Canva's founders had a deck called Canvas Chef, before the company was named Canva, that Perkins says resembled the product launched with AI 2.0.
“I'm gonna take us back to 2011 and to a deck that we had, which was called Canvas Chef before Canva was even called Canva.”
2012
Perkins said that in 2012 Canva pitched an idea called the design engine, predicting other platforms would build their own design tools.
“back in 2012, we had this pitch and we called it. We had the design engine, and we said, like, all these other platforms are gonna like, um, have tools”
2017
In 2017 Canva wrote an internal document called 'getting smart' that predicted search-driven design generated on the fly.
“In 2017, we had this document, we called it getting smart, and we're like, in the future, future, future. There's going to be search driven design”
2019
Canva launched its background remover tool in 2019, letting users remove an image background with one click.
“like 2019, we launched background remover, and the whole point of that was you click the background remove button”
2025
Cameron Adams says Canva released what it calls the world's first foundational design model the previous year.
“the Canva design model, which is, uh, actually the world's first foundational design model that we released last year.”
2026
Cameron Adams says Canva has about a quarter of a billion monthly users.
“We now have quarter of a billion people that use Canva every single month.”
2026
Cameron Adams says more than 500 designs are created in Canva every second.
“We've got over 500 designs created in Canva every single second”
2026
Bob Safian states that Canva launched Canva AI 2.0, a conversational assistant, in April.
“So you launched Canva AI 2.0 in April. Um, it's which is a conversational assistant, right?”
2026
Cameron Adams describes Canva's workforce as about 6,000 people, working as small teams rather than one large ship.
“It's not think of about 6,000 people and and moving them all like the Titanic.”
2026
Canva held an internal event called AI Discovery Week about a month before the interview.
“And, uh, something we did a month ago called AI Discovery Week really speaks to that.”
2026
Cameron Adams says almost half of the AI Discovery Week projects are now in production, internally or for customers.
“I think almost half of them are now pretty much in production, in production internally, or in production actually gone to our customers.”
2026
Cameron Adams says Canva's legal team built a trademark-checking tool that saved 1,500 hours of work.
“Uh, and they've now rolled out a tool which has literally saved them 1,500 hours of work.”
2026
Cameron Adams says Canva does not require employees to use any specific AI tool such as Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini.
“So we're not mandating Claude or ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever tool you wanna use in your part of the company.”
2026
Cameron Adams says Canva ships new features to its own staff first, every day, before customers.
“Cause every great software company, every great AI company, is shipping to themselves first”
2026
Cameron Adams says an internal Canva phrase holds that the company is only ever 1% of the way to its goals.
“it's actually a phrase we have inside Canva that we're we're only ever 1% of the way there.”
2026
Bob Safian describes Canva as a 42 billion dollar company.
“I mean, if 42 billion dollar company is only 1% evolved, the future ahead of us is pretty murky.”
2026
Bob Safian describes the 'SaaSpocalypse' as the idea that software businesses became vulnerable to obsolescence because of AI models' capabilities.
“That that that businesses based around software, not not unlike Canva, were suddenly vulnerable to obsolescence because of what the models could do.”
2026
Cameron Adams says he does not believe one single place will handle all of the world's work.
“I think this notion that there's gonna be one place that the entire world goes to to do all of their work, uh, I don't think is gonna be be a reality.”
2026
Cameron Adams says Canva must serve people of all languages, incomes and devices as it grows toward a billion users.
“not just the rich few, not just a few people who can speak English, but literally everyone in the world who speaks different languages”
2026
Cameron Adams says everything AI produces in Canva is editable like a normal Canva design.
“Uh, so every part of AI in Canva is editable.”
Undated
Melanie Perkins said Canva's enterprise business grew by 100 over the previous year and cited 95 of the Fortune 500 among its enterprise customers.
“We grew by 100 over last year, 95 of Fortune 500 companies and getting really deep footprints with thousands of people at companies now”
Undated
Nilay Patel cited Canva's annualized revenue as about $4 billion, of which about $500 million came from enterprise.
“you're at 4 billion in annualized revenue, 500 million of which is enterprise”
October
Perkins said a significant internal breakthrough in October made Canva AI 2.0 feasible and led the company to go all in on it.
“But then in October, there was a significant breakthrough in the company that meant that we could actually do it.”
Undated
Perkins said hundreds of Canva employees worked on the Canva AI 2.0 project over several years.
“We've had hundreds of people working on this project for some years to get to this point in time.”
Undated
Canva has an in-house research team of about one hundred people working on design AI, according to Perkins.
“we've got a hundred person research team working very specifically on these problems themselves”
Undated
Perkins said the first million users of Canva AI 2.0 are being given a free AI pass worth a hundred monthly credits.
“for the 1st million users, we're giving everyone an AI pass, which we're really excited about, so it's a hundred um monthly pass.”
Undated
Perkins said Canva's Magic Layers feature recorded 8 million uses in its first four weeks.
“Magic Layers has had 8 million uses in the four weeks since launching.”
Undated
Magic Layers, built by Canva's own research team, splits any imported image into editable layers like a Canva template.
“you now take any image from wherever you might generate it into Canva, and then it will actually split it out into layers so you can just edit it like a Canva template.”
Undated
Perkins said Canva partners with OpenAI and Anthropic and also uses its own internal models.
“We partner with, um, OpenAI and Anthropic, and then, of course, our own internal models.”
Undated
Perkins said the price of large language model queries has fallen about fiftyfold over the previous three years.
“the price is being driven down radically. Like, if you look at the price of an of L L M queries, you know, it's grown down fifty times in the last three years.”
Undated
Perkins said Affinity, the design software owned by Canva, has had more than 5 million downloads since its free version was announced.
“Affinity itself has had more than 5 million downloads, um, since, uh, we announced it.”
Undated
At its Canva Create event, Canva gave one million people early access to Canva AI 2.0.
“At Canva Create, we gave one million people access to Canva A I 2.0.”
Undated
Perkins said about a quarter of a billion people use Canva each month.
“We've got, you know, quarter billion people that use Canva each month.”
Undated
Perkins said about 100 million teachers and students use Canva, and that the company launched a free curriculum-aligned content tool called Learn Grid.
“We've got 100 million teachers and students using Canva today, but the access to great tools is like, very divergent”
Undated
Perkins said Canva receives more than a million feature wishes a year from users and granted forty of them at Canva Create.
“we get more than one million wishes a year from our community, um, and so we're actually, we have just granted forty of them at the at Canva Create.”
Undated
Perkins said Canva AI 2.0 orchestrates Canva's different tools and produces a layered file in Canva's standard format.
“it actually is able to orchestrate it and then create a layered file in canvas standard format.”
Undated
Perkins described Canva's original innovation as moving design from pixels to movable objects, and said AI adds a third layer of editing at the level of concepts.
“one of the huge innovations that we had was moving from pixels, where everything was very granular and required deep expertise to be able to move anything around.”
Undated
Perkins said she uses Canva's coding product, Canva Code, to build prototypes instead of mockups.
“I use Canva code all the time, I used to do a lot of mockups, so now I create use Canva code to create, um, prototypes all the time.”
Undated
Perkins said Canva has not chosen a single AI coding tool for its staff and has given employees access to all the leading ones.
“we actually have, like, not selected a winner, we have just like given them everything.”
Episodes