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Start free trial →The TWIML AI Podcast · AI Builders · November 2026
Canva's head of AI research explains why the company built its design models around iteration rather than one-shot generation. It came up after the host noted that delays stack up when you iterate on creative work.
…where something magical gets generated. But like for if you want to really be using the day-to-day, like that's not an option. You know, in game development, there's a rule, anything that takes more than 10 seconds is completely out of the question. And we wanted to get to like instantaneous AI.
Yeah, I mean, particularly with the way that you need to iterate when you're creating, like those delays really stack up.
Yeah, absolutely. And people, I think there's a little bit of Silicon Valley bias that I've seen myself being part of that bias that you think like the new tech comes and it's going to be single shot, perfect, and then people will just adopt it. But the reality is never the case, especially if the task has some creativity in it. It's not just a purely technical task. And so you have to build around iteration. AI will get 70%, 80% there. I will never get to 100%. And so you have to factor in that for the last mile, you need a human in the loop and be able to iterate in a way that is fast and also fun. So that's a key part, I think, of what we do. Until the moment when we will have telepathic helmets that you can wear and you can transfer the full amount of your intent and your vision, but that is a little bit far out, I think.
We're going to dig into the models and what you've created there, talk a little bit about how. But I'm trying to decide how interesting it is that you even did this. Like on the one hand, there are lots of, you know, their frontier labs have models and they a big part of their businesses are…
No, I think it's very interesting because I think it also applies to other companies, maybe of similar size, when basically there's two factors. So, first of all, you have unique data that nobody else has. And then the second part is deep vertical integration of AI Design’s in your stack is going…
In what sense? Without making it a full episode, in what sense?