Canva CMO Zach Kitschke: Weekly Sprints Keep Marketing and AI Product in Sync

Canva's CMO on Embedding Marketing in Weekly Product Sprints

Canva has quietly become the third most-used generative AI consumer product by monthly visits, behind only ChatGPT and Google Gemini, according to analysis by VC firm a16z. That milestone reflects a deliberate transformation: the company now positions itself as an “AI platform with design tools,” not merely a design platform to which AI features have been added. In June, it launched Canva AI 2.0, blending visual creation with workflow automation and conversational AI agents.

To keep pace with the rapid development cycle, chief marketing officer Zach Kitschke has embedded his team directly in the product organisation’s weekly sprints. Product teams shifted from a six-month cadence to weekly show-and-tell meetings where researchers demo the latest work—and marketing now has a permanent seat at those demos. “Marketing actually sits on these, helping shape the product from the research and discovery stage,” Kitschke told ADWEEK. That integration helped steer the launch of tools like Magic Layers, which were designed to solve real pain points flagged by the community.

Canva’s global footprint—265 million monthly users across 190 countries—has also led to a hyper-local marketing push. The brand now runs dedicated campaigns in more than 20 countries. In Brazil, a stunt with fitness influencer Faz Bonito, famous for eating 40 eggs a day, turned a long-running online joke into a spoof luxury egg brand. The campaign generated billions of impressions and even prompted a government post. Kitschke says the next six months will be dominated by further AI product launches and deeper international expansion, from the US to Germany, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.

How Canva's AI Shift Reshapes Its Go-to-Market Playbook

Kitschke’s interview reveals a company that is reorganising not just its tech stack but the working relationship between marketing and engineering. Three dynamics stand out.

From Design Platform to AI Platform: What the Shift Means

By framing Canva as an AI-first platform, the brand is competing directly in the generative AI race—but on its own terms. Unlike ChatGPT or Gemini, which are generalist chat interfaces, Canva’s AI is built specifically for visual creation and workplace workflows. The launch of AI 2.0 with agents that respond to conversational prompts keeps the product familiar while adding capabilities that could lock in enterprise users. Being the third most-used consumer AI product gives Canva a legitimate stake in the platform narrative, but also raises the bar: each release must demonstrate that AI is not a gimmick but a core enabler of the “idea to outcome” journey.

The Weekly Sprint as an Integration Engine

Shifting from half-yearly roadmaps to weekly sprints with marketing in the room changes how value is delivered. Instead of marketing being handed a finished feature to package, it can influence prioritisation early—identifying which community pain points are most urgent and shaping the feature’s go-to-market framing before a single line of code is finalised. For Magic Layers, that meant the tool arrived already aligned with user frustrations. The cadence also forces both sides to stay state-aware, reducing the lag between a breakthrough in the lab and a coherent customer-facing story.

Hyper-Local Creativity at Global Scale

Canva’s Brazilian egg-brand campaign shows how a local cultural in-joke can be turned into a share-of-voice machine when marketing and creative teams are empowered to act quickly. The stunt was not a top-down global template but a country-led activation that tapped a real influencer narrative. The result—billions of impressions and organic costume appearances at Carnival—is a case study in how a digital platform can manufacture cultural relevance without heavy media spend. Extending that model to 20-plus markets while maintaining brand coherence is a significant operational challenge, but the early signs suggest local teams are given enough creative freedom to generate outsized returns.

Credibility with Professional Creators

For higher-end tools like the Affinity Suite Pro, Canva used a design advisory board that included well-known names such as Debbie Millman and Pentagram’s Eddie Opara. That approach serves two purposes: it ensures the product reflects professional workflows, and it builds credibility among a creator community that might otherwise view Canva as a consumer-only tool. As AI features automate more creative tasks, having respected practitioners validate the output helps manage the tension between automation and artistic integrity.

What Marketing Leaders Can Learn from Canva's Sprint Model

• Put marketing in the same room as product discovery. Canva’s weekly sprint demos give marketers a direct line to researchers and engineers. That early involvement lets them help shape feature design and prepare messaging that resonates—not react to a finished product.
• Use community advisory panels for high-stakes launches. The hand-picked design advisory board for the Affinity Suite Pro influenced everything from pricing to packaging. For any product aimed at a professional or niche audience, embedding a handful of trusted users early can sharply reduce the risk of a tone-deaf release.
• Turn local internet culture into scalable earned media. The Faz Bonito egg campaign cost a fraction of a traditional global push but generated billions of impressions. Identify regional influencers or running jokes with genuine organic energy, then build a campaign that amplifies rather than invents the narrative.
• Frame AI not as a feature but as a platform identity. Canva’s repositioning from “design tool with AI” to “AI platform with design tools” gives the entire roadmap a coherent story. Marketing leaders should ensure their own AI-enhanced products have a clear, defensible platform narrative that customers and partners can retell.
• Plan for weekly, not quarterly, messaging cadences. When product ships in weekly sprints, the marketing engine must match that rhythm. Invest in lightweight approval processes and modular content templates so feature launches can go live without being stuck in long review cycles.