I’ll be honest about what we expected: give 5,000 smart, motivated people a full week with the best AI tools in the world, and watch transformation happen. What we actually discovered was more useful — and more humbling. The bottleneck wasn’t the technology. It was us.
People didn’t know how to give themselves permission to experiment. They felt guilty stepping away from their inboxes. They defaulted to the use cases they already knew rather than exploring ones that might change how they worked. The tools were ready. The humans weren’t — not because they lacked capability, but because we hadn’t built the conditions for genuine exploration. That realization shaped everything we did next.
And it isn’t just a Canva problem. I see it in conversations with customers every day. Every company I talk to has bought the tools, rolled out the policies, maybe even mandated usage — and six months later, not much has changed. Adoption is flat. Teams revert to old habits. Leadership starts wondering why the investment isn’t translating into behavior change. The issue usually isn’t the technology. It’s the assumption that giving people access automatically changes how they work.
A few years ago, employees came to us saying they wanted dedicated time and access to tools to really explore what AI could do for their work. Pockets of teams were already making breakthroughs on their own. So we decided to clear the calendar for 5,000+ employees and give everyone a full week dedicated to exploring AI. What we’ve learned from doing this for two years has shaped how we help customers solve the same problem.
