{"id":23327,"date":"2025-11-17T16:51:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T00:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/?p=23327"},"modified":"2025-11-17T19:56:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T03:56:37","slug":"ai-outcomes-and-closing-loops-how-canva-thinks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/17\/ai-outcomes-and-closing-loops-how-canva-thinks\/","title":{"rendered":"AI, outcomes, and closing loops: How Canva thinks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
My buddy Bilawal recently sat down with Canva cofounder & Chief Product Officer Cameron Adams for an informative conversation. These points, among others, caught my attention:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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“Canva is a goal-achievement machine<\/strong>.\u201d That is, users approach it with particular outcomes in mind (e.g. land your first customer, get your first investment), and the feature development team works back from those goals. As the old saying goes, “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole”\u2014i.e. a specific outcome.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
They seek to reduce the gap between idea & outcome<\/strong>. This reminded me of the first Adobe promo I saw more than 30 years ago: \u201cImagine what you can create. Create what you can imagine.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
Measuring<\/strong> the achievement of goals is critical. That includes gathering insights from audience response.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
They’re pursuing a three-tiered AI strategy<\/strong>: homegrown foundational models that they need to own (based on deep insight into user behavior); partnerships with state-of-the-art models (e.g. GPT, Veo); and a rich ecosystem and app marketplace (hosting image & music generation and more).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you think about AI as a collaborator<\/strong>, it opens up a whole palette of different interactions & product experiences you can deliver.\u201d No single modality (e.g. prompting alone) is ideal for everything from ideation to creation to refinement.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s it like to author at a higher level of abstraction? “It’s a dance,” and it’s still a work in progress.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s the role of personalization<\/strong>? Responsive<\/strong> content. Personalizing messaging has been a huge driver of Canva’s growth, and they want to bring similar tools & best practices to everyone.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe real crux of Canva is storytelling<\/strong>.\u201d Video is now used by tens of millions of people. Across media (video, images, presentations), the same challenges appear: Properly complete your idea. Make fine-grained edits. Bring in others & get their feedback.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
“Knowing the start & the end, but less of the middle<\/strong>.” AI-enabled tools can remove production drudgery, but one’s starting point & desired outcome remain essential. Start: Fundamental understanding of what works. Ideas, thinking creatively. Elements of editorship & taste are essential. Later: It’s how you express this, measure impact, take insights into the creation loop.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n