A View from the Canva Create Conference

Canva’s 2026 Canva Create interactive conference took place on April 16 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Since our team uses Canva for several design and creative tasks, I was curious to see what the conference had to offer. So, I intrepidly braved the ostensible (but nonexistent) airport turmoil to fly down and check it out with our Media Designer Jessylyn. I’m glad we did.

My day started around 8:00 with an exploration of the fully Instagrammable creative playground that was set up just inside the conference entrance. No color was left behind, with neon paths leading to attractions such as an oversized swing set, a pickleball court, a multi-person, two-story slide, and a giant rubber duck, among others. There were even free popsicles available to help bring out our inner children.

Left: Me (front) and Jessylyn walking the pink carpet at the playground entrance. Left: Jessylyn and I on the swings.

I have never played pickleball and did not start at Canva Create, but I did enjoy sitting in the stands and chatting with other creative professionals while the action happened on the court. In fact, one of the highlights of the event for me was the way it encouraged play, from the literal playground to the design labs that offered hands-on tutorials and showcased design challenges.

Sometimes, you need to get out of the office and experience something new to get a creative jolt, and the playground certainly fit that bill.

Jessylyn, enjoying her time with the larger-than-life rubber duck.

Beyond the playground, the conference featured several experiences, including partner booths, design talks, presentations by business leaders, and creative labs. But the big reveal came during the opening keynote presentation, a well-choreographed show featuring speakers, an orchestra, astronauts, cowboys, and a live band, interwoven with real-world examples of how businesses and organizations can put Canva’s tools to work for them.

The uptake? Canva is going all in on AI with its release of Canva AI 2.0, which expands the platform beyond graphics with a suite of tools, including scheduling and assistant features that aim to compete with agentic tools like Claude Cowork. Canva’s leaders describe it as a transition from being a dedicated design platform to an AI platform with advanced design capabilities.  

As a Canva user, I am interested in the platform’s progression but hopeful that it will not abandon its core mission to empower design. I want AI to supplement creativity, not replace it.  However, several of the new capabilities, in particular the ability to process documents and edit HTML, should make research and design iteration more efficient, helping us deliver creative assets quickly and at scale to our law firm clients. And new AI brand management tools should enable all team members to create assets while maintaining your firm’s brand consistency.  

After the keynote, we were free to explore the talks, partner booths, and workshops. I swung by the Flourish booth to check out some data visualization examples and did a hands-on lab where I worked with Leonardo AI’s image editing tools. My soda can looked good as a beachgoing superhero, in my opinion.  

Yes, let’s do it! Me (left) and Jessylyn (right).

In fact, I spent much of my day exploring the design labs, where I applied some of Canva’s new AI tools to MailChimp newsletter creation, did some video editing, learned about IA workflows, and attended a data storytelling seminar.

Not all the talks were directly related to the product, which I found helpful from a business development standpoint. I sat in on a discussion about scaling content creation across organizations and heard from leaders at Twilio and DocuSign who shared case studies on how they made content and creative asset creation faster and more efficient within their teams.

One of the biggest highlights of the conference, according to many participants, was a talk by director, screenwriter, and producer Jon M. Chu, who directed, among other films, Crazy Rich Asians, Wicked, and Wicked: For Good. The discussion centered on world-building within a cinematic universe, but more deeply, it was a tribute to persistence, creative vision, and understanding how to nurture opportunities. It was a reminder to keep storytelling at the heart of design and communications.

In a closing talk, HOORAE Media CEO, producer, and actress Issa Rae and author, fashion designer, and Fifteen Percent Pledge founder Aurora James explored what it means to build creative empires in service of something greater.

Issa Rae reflected on her evolution from creative storyteller to ecosystem builder, using HOORAE to challenge industry norms and open doors for diverse voices. Aurora James shared her roots in fashion and her passion that led to the founding of Brother Vellies, a brand that celebrates African artisans. She views fashion through an anthropological lens, asking questions like who inspired this, where it came from, and which culture made it possible. That same intentionality led her to launch the Fifteen Percent Pledge in 2020, a nonprofit that partners with major retailers to commit 15 percent of their purchasing power to Black-owned businesses, in response to a moment that demanded accountability, not just awareness.

Together, they reveal how influence, wielded with intention, can reshape industries, rebalance inequities, and create lasting opportunity for others to rise.

Multi-national companies, small organizations, and law firms all eventually face the problematic reality of a design bottleneck, where content needs exceed creative capacity, slowing progress. The experiences shared by these professionals provided a new perspective on how to use new technologies to dislodge stuck pieces and push on-brand marketing assets quickly, without sacrificing quality. We look forward to bringing this vision to our law firm clients.  

Let’s get growing!