Speaker

Zhang Chen Canva Head of Design of CJKI Region
Head of Design of CJKI Region at Canva, and a founding employee of Canva's China office. Previously, as the first designer at LinkedIn China, he single‑handedly built the core visual identity and the beloved IP character "Mengmeng" for the professional social product "Chitu," pioneering the localization of a global social platform for the Chinese market.

With over 10 years of experience in internet design and five years in design management, he possesses strong design thinking capabilities as well as an international perspective on team management. He excels at bridging the gap between internet product design, visual communication, user research, and data analytics, driving design decisions from "subjective aesthetics" to "data‑ and insight‑driven" approaches.

His core competency lies in helping foreign‑funded unicorn companies cross cultural divides and achieve 0‑to‑1 localization. He has successfully helped two international unicorns enter the Chinese market, building design teams from scratch, defining product language, adapting to local user habits, and ultimately achieving business breakthroughs. At Canva China, he leads the design team in continuously exploring the localized expression of the "design equity" philosophy, ensuring that AI‑powered creative tools truly serve ordinary Chinese users.

From "Action-Driven" to "Intent-Driven": Canva Redefines Human-Machine Co-Creation

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Session D1

Meeting room Undetermined

Time 11/01 09:00-12:00

Type Workshop

Language Mandarin

Direction Product Innovation

keynote content

Content Introduction

As AI tools rapidly evolve from being "action‑driven" to "intent‑driven," the complex operational logic of traditional design tools is becoming a bottleneck for creative expression. What users truly need is a way to directly communicate "what they want" through natural language, rather than having to learn "how to do it."

This session takes Canva's AI evolution as a real‑world case study, combining case deconstruction, immersive hands‑on exercises, and group co‑creation. Participants will deeply experience the complete transition from "learning tool rules" to "expressing intent through natural language," and explore the pathway for designers to evolve from "executors" to "evaluators" in the AI era. Attendees will gain insight into the cutting‑edge interaction logic of AI design tools, understand the evolution from "tool" to "integrated ecosystem," and take away a reusable "human‑AI collaboration division of labor checklist" to inform their own product decisions or career planning.

Main Content

1. Icebreaking & Paradigm Introduction: From "How to Do" to "What I Want"
1.1 Time cost analysis in traditional design work: tool operation vs. problem solving
1.2 The interaction paradigm shift triggered by AI: from "action‑driven" to "intent‑driven"
1.3 Canva's evolution path: from "putting design into the browser" to "letting design happen naturally"

2. Immersive Experience: "Summoning" Design with Natural Language
2.1 Design principles of natural language as a universal interaction interface
2.2 Comparison between traditional tool operation paths and AI conversation paths (time, cognitive load, learning curve)
2.3 Current limitations of natural language interaction: scenarios and causes of vague intent expression

3. From Tool to Ecosystem: The Evolution of an Integrated Productivity System
3.1 How Canva AI 2.0 integrates the entire process of design, collaboration, and distribution
3.2 Technical logic of importing and automatically converting externally generated AI content (text/image → editable layers)
3.3 Core module components of future integrated design platforms

4. Role Evolution: From Executor to Evaluator
4.1 The shift in designers' core value after AI takes over standardized work: judgment, taste, strategy
4.2 Principles of human‑AI collaboration division across different design projects (brand identity, marketing long graphics, data visualization)
4.3 A general decision framework: the "human‑AI collaboration division of labor checklist"

5. Vision Co‑creation: Empowering Everyone with the Courage to Express
5.1 The philosophy of "design equity" and Canva's ultimate vision
5.2 How AI lowers the barrier to creativity: from professional tools to mass expression
5.3 Technology for good: the social value of enabling more people to have the courage to express

6. Summary & Outlook
6.1 Recap of key points: intent‑driven approach, ecosystem evolution, role transformation
6.2 Future trends in AI design tools and recommended learning resources

Structure and Agenda

1、Icebreaking & paradigm introduction
2、Immersive experience: "summoning" design with natural language
3、From tool to ecosystem: deconstructing the integrated system
4、Role evolution workshop
5、Vision co‑creation: "design equity" postcards
6、Summary & Q&A

Target Audience

1、Product designers, interaction designers, visual designers — those who want to master new design workflows and tool logic in the AI era
2、Product managers, AI product leads — those focused on integrating AI capabilities into productivity tools and building integrated ecosystems
3、Design team managers — those seeking to understand the transformation of designers' roles and the reconstruction of competency models in the AI era
4、Any creative workers, educators, or students interested in the "intent‑driven" interaction paradigm

Participants Benefit

1、Master the cutting‑edge interaction logic of AI design tools: learn how to enable AI to understand design needs through natural language, thereby improving daily creative efficiency.
2、Gain insight into future trends of AI products and ecosystems: from the "tool → ecosystem" evolution path, acquire a forward‑looking understanding of AI‑driven integrated productivity systems, providing valuable reference for product decisions or personal career planning.

Work Case