Canva’s Plan for the Future of Work: Technology that Brings People Together

Canva is a leading platform for visual communication and collaboration, empowering millions globally to design anything and publish anywhere. With more than 220 million active users in over 190 countries, the company has grown to become a household name in the design and creativity space. Behind this global success is a company that prioritises collaboration, scalability, and innovation‌ — ‌a culture that is powered by Slack as their work operating system.

For over a decade, Canva has used Slack to connect teams across time zones, logging over 1.3 million monthly searches and automating 1,200 workflows. With the introduction of Slack AI, Canva is pushing workplace productivity boundaries and setting the stage for a future where AI agents play a central role in their daily operations.

At the recent Salesforce World Tour 2025, Canva accepted their Slack Spotlight Award on stage. Michael Denari, Global Head of IT at Canva, shared insights into their approach to AI and agentic technology, highlighting how the company is revolutionising how they work and shaping their global future.

Canva’s Journey with Slack and Salesforce: A Decade of Innovation

Slack and Salesforce have been a cornerstone of Canva’s operations for 10 years. “Slack is the central nervous system for how we connect, communicate, and collaborate,” Denari says. Alongside Slack, tools like Marketing Cloud and Sales Cloud simplify Canva’s marketing and sales processes, helping the company scale globally while maintaining its creative culture.

True to its commitment to innovation, Canva has recently embraced Slack AI. “Slack AI helps reduce significant amounts of noise and summarise key conversations, ensuring we stay on top of what matters most in a tailored way for each Canvanaut,” Denari shares. Slack AI has been especially valuable across time zones to support Canva’s global teams. 

Shaping the Future of Productivity and Creativity

Looking ahead, Denari sees agentic AI as a game-changer for every business function at Canva. “AI is here to amplify creativity and productivity,” he shares. By leveraging AI agents, Canva aims to boost productivity without sacrificing creativity‌ — ‌whether it’s automating internal support queries, creating customer support knowledge bases, drafting HR performance reviews, or accelerating software development.

AI integration isn’t just about automation‌ — it’s about enabling teams to focus on high-value work. Key to this is driving a culture celebrating the use of AI, integrating internal knowledge and data, and empowering employees to solve complex problems. Denari believes that AI agents will drive both productivity and employee engagement as they spend more time focused on high value work.

Canva’s Vision: AI-Enhanced Workplaces for the Future

Canva is using AI to make work more efficient and impactful, shaping a future where people and technology work together. Their vision puts them at the forefront of AI innovation and how we’ll work going forward.

In early 2024, Canva launched its company-wide “AI Everywhere” initiative, designed to empower its team of more than 5,000 with the tools, training, and resources needed to seamlessly integrate AI into their workflows.  Their goal is to make AI literacy accessible to every team member – regardless of their role or technical background.

In 2025 their initiative has evolved to “AI Impact” as they aim to leverage the foundations built in 2024 to codify best practices and capture the significant value they see in AI across the company.  AI Agents will play a significant role in this shift taking early experiments in summarisation, data synthesis, and action-oriented AI tasks to agents being implemented and adopted across all business units of Canva.