As AI-generated creators and near-identical AI visuals flood social feeds, the question of what is left for humans to do has become hard to avoid. At TechSparks 2026, Chandrika Deb, Country Manager, India, Canva, offered a clear answer: judgement, intent, and point of view.
In a fireside chat titled "Tool to Co-creator: How AI is rewriting the creative process,” with Aditya Gurwara, Co-Founder and Head of Brand Alliance, Qoruz, Chandrika said that Canva sees itself as "a collaborator, a partner and an enabler" in the creative process. According to her, AI removes barriers of skill, resources, and knowledge.
She drove the point home with an interesting statistic.
“We've heard from 97% of the marketers we have surveyed that they use AI in some form. But it's about understanding whether this is the best output I can get from the prompt I've generated. So it's about having that judgement and intent in place, and that only comes from human nature. It ensures you are using AI in the best possible way and getting output that is relevant for your audience,” she said.
Asked whether generative AI is moving from democratising design to democratising creativity itself, Chandrika replied, “ I think it's about democratising the ability to act on your creativity. All of us have inherent creativity. AI helps you realise it by overcoming barriers. Maybe it's a mental block: I want to create a video, but I don't know what to create it on. AI helps you overcome that ideation barrier. Or maybe it's a resource barrier: I need so many team members to make that video for me,” she explained.
A small business owner may have an idea of what they want to build but may not be able to visualize how the product should look and feel. Chandrika believes AI lets you get to that output much faster and iterate more easily than before.
She framed this as the next phase of Canva's story. She said the company's first decade brought fragmented, expensive design tools into one online editor. The current decade is about doing the same for scattered AI platforms and workflows, so businesses can work more efficiently.
Chandrika expects AI to reshape team structures, mainly by widening participation. Founders, marketers, product staff and salespeople can now start shaping creative work before specialist design teams step in.
“Historically, we've relied on design teams to produce much of the creative output companies work on. AI makes it easier for a founder, a marketer, someone on the product team, or a salesperson to get involved much faster. So the structure of teams is evolving. It's about who steps into the journey earlier,” she said.
Specialists who understand craft, cultural nuance and audiences remain essential, she added, as do creative-operations experts who keep output on brand.
She also flagged the need to be mindful when working with early talent, because years of experience often bring judgement.
“As leaders, it's our job to shape early talent, give them feedback and mentor them, so that those just starting out with AI in the workplace get a better sense of how to use their judgment, and use AI more efficiently and more responsibly,” she added.
Chandrika also addressed the risk of AI-driven personalisation becoming noise rather than relevance. “Personalisation becomes noise when your audience sees no benefit,” she said, emphasising that AI should make content more relevant to the people it seeks to reach.
AI, she explained, lets brands scale personalisation across more audience segments, formats, and languages, rather than creating assets for a limited number of groups. Tools such as Canva AI can generate multilingual content, helping brands tailor communication to different audiences while accounting for cultural nuances.
However, technology alone cannot guarantee relevance. “At the end of the day, you have to make it relevant for them. Otherwise, it just becomes noise,” Chandrika said.
Chandrika believes AI will overturn the assumption that creativity is a skill reserved for a select few or those with access to resources.
“What AI has shown is that anyone with a sense of judgement and an idea can produce a good creative. We recently launched a new campaign for Canva called Aap aur Canva, Jodi Wah Wah, to communicate this: Canva is your partner. It helps you overcome the lack of confidence you may feel about exploring your creativity,” she elaborated.
According to her, AI can play a huge role in removing self-doubt or inhibition people may have about exploring their creativity. It can help everyone go from idea to output more seamlessly and iterate on their ideas.
“The other thing is that in businesses today, AI empowers everyone to be part of the creative process, and part of the process that takes an idea to a product to a business. We are seeing a lot of organic, bottom-up adoption of AI tools within businesses because they solve a real problem for employees. Nobody has to come in and force it on them. 95% of the Fortune 500 companies use Canva and our AI features, so we see real value and real impact. It is delivering ROI for these businesses,” she added.