Canva’s Bold AI Strategy Empowers Every Employee to Shape Their Own Workflow

Canva’s CTO Empowers Employees to Choose Their Own AI Tools

At Canva, artificial intelligence is more than just a buzzword—it's a hands-on opportunity for every employee. Brendan Humphreys, Canva’s Chief Technology Officer, encourages all 5,000 staff members to explore and adopt AI tools that best fit their individual workflows. His approach? “We want to have just a thousand blossoms bloom,” meaning a diverse range of tools and solutions flourish within the company.

Canva’s approach is what Humphreys calls “permissive” licensing. Employees have the freedom to purchase any enterprise AI tool they want, but with a critical safety net: the company’s security and trust teams thoroughly vet each potential tool before approval. This ensures data protection and cybersecurity standards are upheld, rejecting any vendors that don’t meet these criteria.

Shifting the IT Paradigm

Traditionally, IT departments controlled which technologies employees could use. Canva is flipping this model. Humphreys believes everyone in the company is now part of research and development when it comes to AI. Employees are motivated to recognize that AI impacts their job roles directly and to take ownership of how they integrate these tools into their daily tasks.

This mindset shift presents a unique challenge for leadership. Educating the workforce on AI’s best uses is a priority. To support this, Canva has scheduled an “AI discovery week” in July, featuring three days of learning and a two-day hackathon. This event offers employees dedicated time to experiment and innovate with AI, led by both expert technologists and self-taught peers.

Building a Collaborative AI Culture

Canva also hosts biweekly AI-focused virtual events that attract up to 2,000 participants. These sessions allow employees to share their favorite AI use cases and learn from one another. For example, one employee developed a custom GPT—a specialized AI model based on OpenAI’s GPT—to help managers compare career goals with performance notes. This tool streamlines the process of writing bi-annual performance reviews, saving valuable time.

Engineers at Canva have embraced AI coding assistants like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Windsurf. They demonstrate effective prompting techniques, show the limits of these tools, and emphasize the importance of human review. Every piece of AI-generated code undergoes peer review, encouraging a culture where AI is a collaborator, not a replacement.

Supporting Junior Engineers with AI and Mentorship

New graduates often face a gap: they know how to use AI tools but lack the experience to judge the quality of AI-generated code. To address this, Canva invests in mentoring programs pairing junior engineers with seniors. They’ve also built a custom GPT trained on over 300 peer-reviewed articles by Canva engineers. This AI acts like a knowledgeable colleague, answering questions about software development practices within the company.

Humphreys acknowledges this is an industry-wide challenge—helping junior engineers transition into senior roles while effectively using AI.

Adoption Over Perfection

Currently, about 50% of Canva’s engineers use AI tools daily, with a goal to reach 80% by the end of 2025. Productivity gains hover around 30%, aligning with what other tech leaders report. But Humphreys focuses more on adoption rates than productivity metrics, believing that widespread use is key to long-term success.

AI Products and Human Oversight

Since joining Canva in 2014 and becoming CTO in 2023, Humphreys has overseen the launch of AI-powered products like Canva Sheets—a collaborative spreadsheet with AI features—and AI video generation with synchronized audio, powered by Google’s Veo 3 model.

Internally, Canva emphasizes keeping humans in control. Whether AI helps with coding, writing press releases, preparing job assessments, or marketing plans, employees remain responsible for the final output. “Humans are ultimately the owners,” Humphreys says. “They really have to own that output.”

What Product Developers Can Take Away

• Encourage experimentation with AI tools tailored to individual workflows.
• Ensure security and data privacy remain top priorities when adopting new technologies.
• Promote knowledge sharing and peer learning to accelerate AI literacy.
• Blend AI capabilities with human judgment and review for best results.
• Support junior team members with mentorship and AI-powered resources.
• Focus on adoption and cultural integration of AI rather than just productivity metrics.

For product development teams aiming to integrate AI responsibly and effectively, Canva’s model offers a clear path: empower employees, maintain oversight, and foster continuous learning. For further AI training resources that can help your team adapt, explore Complete AI Training’s latest courses.