Designing for Accessibility: How AI Lowers the Skill Floor w/ Ahmad Iqbal, AI Product & Head of MENAP @ Canva

What if "designing well" no longer requires years of training, and the real work becomes choosing the story to tell?

In this episode of Artificial Insights, host Daniel Manary interviews Ahmad Iqbal, product lead and Head of MENAP at Canva, about what it really means to design for accessibility in the age of AI. Ahmad helped launch Canva’s first generative AI features and shares how the company's guiding principle, making creativity accessible to everyone, drives its product, culture, and internal AI adoption.

The conversation traces how a 48-hour hackathon project became Magic Write, how Ahmad approached AI as a non-technical product manager, and why the best ideas at Canva don’t ship if they’re not simple enough for anyone to understand.

The episode closes with a wider reflection on how AI changes not just what we design, but  ...