‘It’s ours to lose’: Cliff Obrecht sets the stakes for Canva AI 2.0
Canva’s co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht tells Capital Brief why the company is betting its 250 million users — and its private company advantage — on becoming one of the world’s top AI platforms.
For four years, Canva Create has been a showcase for the company’s latest products and has even had its infamous moments — among them a rap battle at its 2024 event that TechCrunch declared part of Silicon Valley’s long legacy of cringe.
This year, against the backdrop of a live orchestra at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, Canva made its pitch to the 6,000 people in attendance and others watching online, that it’s no longer a SaaS design company, but an AI one.
Across the SaaS industry, AI has collapsed product roadmaps, rendered moats negotiable and forced a reckoning with what software companies are actually for.
While many of its SaaS peers face public market pressure to explain themselves mid-transition, Canva has the rare advantage of being able to make that shift on its own terms — private, cashflow positive, and moving fast. But that does not mean that it’s immune from the AI-induced existential crisis gripping SaaS platforms.
