Canva tells HT that since the acquisition, Affinity has gained over half a million new users and has shipped two major updates, versions 2.5 and 2.6, which add nearly 50 new features. This, in parallel with Canva which now has more than 230 million users at last count, this June, as per official numbers. Through Canva Education, Affinity is now also completely free for schools and non-profits across the globe, in the hope to bring world-class pro tools into classrooms and communities. Canva sees India as a high-potential market for Affinity, citing strong opportunities for new user growth. Among Indian users, they say Photo and Designer are the most popular Affinity apps.

In a conversation with HT, Liam Fisher, who is Head of Pro Design Marketing at Canva points out that “It’s about craft, the creativity, a designer and their unique eye for detail. What we want to make sure is we’re not taking away anything from that craft.” This is pivotal in the time when the conversation about artificial intelligence (AI) often veers towards overestimating the machine’s capabilities. Fisher tells us that it is important to Canva and Affinity’s platforms to compliment each other, break the trend of bloatware in creative apps, why he doesn’t believe we are witnessing an AI takeover but more an evolution of a tool to assist creativity, the advantages of a community-led update approach, as well as scaling data privacy and AI ethics across platforms. Edited excerpts.

Q. For years professional designers had to work within often restrictive subscription models. Canva’s Affinity acquisition allows it to compete better with Adobe’s creative tools, for example. In that spectrum, which specific pain points are you trying to address, and how are you fundamentally changing what professional designers should expect from the tools they use?

Liam Fisher: You’ve hit the nail on the head really, that subscription models have always been very restrictive. What we’ve found is that software in this space has always been quite bloated with lots of unnecessary features, and really those features are there to justify its ever increasing subscription. All that’s done is really slowed down creativity. Canva and Affinity have taken a different pathway where we’re looking at this as being more grounded in accessibility, freedom and performance. We’re just giving professional designers a choice, and not being as restrictive while really just trying to empower designers to do what they do best and create.

Canva and Affinity are very aligned on our missions and values. That’s why it made so much sense when the acquisition happened. Canva is focussed on empowering that sort of 99% of the workforce with no formal design training, and Affinity has always been very focussed on those 1% of professionals that need precision and power. So together, every kind of user can take advantage of that freedom of allowing different departments within an organisation to be able to communicate with each other visually. In Canva we have a tool in the market that allows non-designers to communicate visually, and with Affinity, you’ve got the tool that’s always there for designers. Everyone can work together and speak in the same language.

Q. How has AI changed and improved Affinity’s apps, and what are the key focus areas? Are the models in play, developed in-house?

Fisher: From day one, Canva’s mission has been to empower the world to design. AI’s been a huge part of that because they want it to be a tool, allows a non-designer to kind of communicate visually and create things that they wouldn’t have been able to create themselves. But, you know, ultimately, where Affinity comes in is that we think professional design is far more than just the tools.

It’s about the craft, the creativity, a designer and their unique eye for detail. What we want to make sure is we’re not taking away anything from that craft, because ultimately that’s what a professional designer wants to do, that’s what they’re obsessed with their kind of craft and sort of precision. So that’s why Affinity remains core, it’s given pro-designers that precision and control that they need to bring their vision to life.

AI in Canva, on the other hand, does most of the heavy lifting. So really, when we look at AI and how we’re going to integrate that into Affinity, it’s very much about improving the workflow of a designer. That’s what we did this year when we introduced our first machine learning features. We are providing a platform that allows professional designers to craft incredibly precise, well crafted designs and then scale them, adapt them and collaborate seamlessly in Canva. So that’s really what our mission here is between the two companies. It’s not about replacing any of the craft. It’s a combination of kind of in house and partner technologies that we’re working with to improve. That’s really what we’re always striving to do, is improve the life of a professional designer.

Q. I often say that Canva isn’t in direct competition with Adobe, but instead, there’s competition in some form or the other with Google, Microsoft and most AI companies too. Do you see that as a big target on the back?

Fisher: I don’t think that does put a target on our back, and I don’t think the onus is on us, really. We’re very community focussed, and our aim is to build the best tools for that complete range of design needs from beginner to professionals. Many of the other design tools on the market for pro designers are very, very bloated. Lots of excess features that are unnecessary, deteriorating performance and slowing down the creative workflow.Honestly, we think designers deserve better than the status quo.

That means the target is not on our back. We don’t feel that pressure. We’re there to show people a different way, an alternative to the status quo with a very powerful alternative. We’ve got a comprehensive suite of professional design tools, all optimised with the latest technology and the latest hardware. And that creates that kind of smooth, real-time editing experience, which improves the workflow. The pressure really isn’t on us.

Q. AI is often framed as a shortcut to creativity. Is it a threat to genuine creativity, and do you believe AI is blurring the lines between a generation and creativity?

Fisher: There’s no denying that there’s a transformation under way for creatives and all professionals. But we see AI as a tool, it’s not a takeover. Technology has transformed creative work for decades, and that’s always been the case, going all the way back from when designs were hand drawn all the way through the kind of digital design now. So, innovations like computer graphics, editing software, they’ve shifted those job roles, no doubt, and that’s created new work.

But human creativity remains vital, and that’s the most important part of this. Design and visual work needs that human taste, it needs that vision to innovate. So when this isn’t really about a threat or a replacement, what this is about is combining human creativity with AI to create new opportunities.

Creatives can develop and they can license custom models based on their content, they can monetise that. There’s lots and lots of opportunities for AI. We’re not really looking at this as some kind of takeover and a threat to any kind of creativity. This is a way of freeing people up to be creative.

Q. Canva always makes it a point to say that functionality and updates are community-led. Does that approach to innovation have an inherent disadvantage with time?

Fisher: I believe we’re creating the gold standard of user centric development and innovation based on feedback. Everything we do is anchored in making that complex thing simple. Innovation is guided by millions of people that use it every day, from teachers and small businesses, to pro designers, enterprise and teams, that ensures every update addresses real-world needs and not just trends. And that feedback loop with our community is incredibly important, and a community lead model helps us prioritise what matters most.

Instead of building features in isolation, we can build with complete clarity, focus and speed, knowing it’ll have that immediate impact. This is how we avoid that bloated feature set that we talk about quite often. We invest heavily in long term innovation, across AI tools, enterprise-ready solutions, pro-design capabilities, they all come across the Canva family. Important for us to try and anticipate future needs and leapfrog challenges. Ultimately, that constant dialogue with our user base means that we can focus on what really matters to them and drive impact instantly.

Q. What is Canva’s approach to use data and privacy, and how important is it that the vision of AI and ethics updates regularly with time? Would there be specific areas you focus on with the Affinity apps?

Fisher: At Canva, trust and safety are non negotiable. We have the Canva Shield framework, and that’s the foundation of how we approach data and privacy and AI ethics. It combines robust safety tools and clear privacy protections, and gives our users that confidence as they create. We’ve built-in multi-layered, safeguards across the partner AI models that we work with, including content moderation, and we’ve got both inputs and outputs so that creativity is supported responsibly at every stage. At Affinity, we ensure that all of our users are in control about how their data is used. Be it decisions around training, ensuring transparency and choice, is absolutely fundamental.

Investing in ongoing research into bias mitigation so that AI outputs reflect diverse communities fairly and inclusively, is a huge part of not just what Affinity does, but Canva as well. With AI, we don’t really sort of just stop at generating content. Canva’s about taking ideas through the last mile of design, refining, editing, and collaborating. Therefore, outputs become meaningful, usable and sort of human centred. We’ve got the same principles with Affinity, and as we bring professional grade design tools into Canva, the AI ethics and privacy protections scale with them so that creative professionals can confidently use Affinity apps knowing safety transparency and that users are in control. And that’s always been part of our values from day one.