How Miro’s New Features Help Designers Move from Ideas to Action

By Hannah Baker

Dear Reader,

If you’re a regular, you know the drill: every year, the biggest players reveal their latest tricks and tools, aiming to change the way we work.

This time, it was Miro’s turn with Canvas '24, rolling out the Innovation Workspace with many new features that promise to take our workshops, meetings, and design sessions to new heights.

You might be a die-hard FigJam fan, but for those like me who live and breathe Miro daily, it’s hard not to be curious (and maybe a bit skeptical) about all the latest upgrades they’re promising.

So, let’s dive into what Miro claims they can do now, with some personal takes and the usual healthy dose of hesitation.

AI-Powered Prototyping: Supporting Design in Real-Time

One of my favorite things about Miro is how quickly it lets us turn ideas into something visual.

During workshops, we’re often discussing features or new concepts, and it’s incredibly useful to be able to start building right there on the canvas. Miro’s AI-powered prototyping makes this even easier, giving us the ability to sketch out wireframes or create clickable prototypes on the spot.

This keeps the creative flow going and lets us see those ideas come to life instantly, all without leaving the platform.

But do we really need another prototyping tool?

Maybe not. However, the ability to jump right in and try out ideas with stakeholders in the room within 30 minutes could be a huge advantage for recovering big ideas that might otherwise be missed.

There’s a concern that this might lead to non-designers feeling empowered to create prototypes that don’t align with usability or desirability. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and influences our workflows.

Docs and Tables: Detailed Documentation, But Only in Miro

Miro Docs is a great addition, letting us create structured documents with headings, bullet points, and embedded images or objects. It’s perfect for capturing everything from workshop recaps to action steps.

However, it quickly became apparent that Miro is trying to keep users within its ecosystem—currently, these documents can’t be downloaded or accessed outside of Miro.

While you can view them full-screen, share, and collaborate on them, you’re still confined to Miro’s platform. This makes me wonder what they’re planning for future integrations.

This also applies to Tables. While they offer great potential for organizing project data, they’re most effective when combined with Miro’s Atlassian automation.

For teams using Jira or Confluence, these integrations can help streamline task tracking and status updates directly on the canvas​

Intelligent Widgets: Enhancing Engagement in Real-Time

The Intelligent Widgets are an interesting part of the new rollout.

While I don't have access to them all yet, I’m eager to test out some of the newer ones from the Canvas '24 announcement, like Spinner Wheels, Feedback Scale, and Sticky Stacks.

These widgets seem like they’ll add an extra layer of interactivity to our sessions.

If you haven’t yet, I recommend checking out the July-released Dot Voting and People widgets.

I think they’ll be a big hit in our upcoming workshops, giving us new ways to keep everyone involved and engaged.​

AI-Driven: A New Layer of Efficiency and Alignment

One of the overarching themes of the Innovation Workspace is its AI-driven enhancements, designed to streamline workflows while keeping creativity front and center. (No surprise there, given AI's growing influence across nearly every market today!)

The summaries feature can scan through lengthy discussion threads and pull out actionable items, ideal for post-workshop follow-ups.

I’ve found that while Miro’s prebuilt prompts are solid, customizing prompts adds even much more value.

By adding specific context and choosing the output format, I get results more tailored to my needs.

This could be particularly useful for designers who have particular formats or structures in mind that the default prompts don’t entirely cover​

There were also other announcements at Canvas '24 that I don't have time to dive into here.

These include video calls, the Catch-Up tool for quick visual summaries of what happened since you last engaged, new sections and pinned third-party docs in Spaces, customizable action shortcuts, and partnerships with Adobe Express and Glean for AI-driven information retrieval.

Plus, Miro Academy is filled with content if you want to dig deeper into all the new capabilities.

Challenges to Keep in Mind

Even with all these updates, there are a few things I’m still cautious about:

• Over-Reliance on AI: With Miro’s AI taking on tasks like prototyping and summarizing ideation, it’s easy to lean on it a bit too much. We must balance automation with our creative thinking, ensuring we engage deeply with the design process.
• Learning Curve and Complexity: The Innovation Workspace packs a lot into it, which might initially feel overwhelming. his means dedicating time to learning these new features, especially if we’re facilitating workshops with participants unfamiliar with the platform.
• Potential Tool Fragmentation: While Miro combines many tools, some features might overlap with others we already use. To avoid unnecessary complexity, it’s worth evaluating which of these new tools genuinely enhance your workflow.​

Overall, Miro’s Innovation Workspace offers an intriguing set of tools that could enhance our workshops and design processes.

It’s clear they’re striving to be more than just a whiteboard; rather, they're a hub for innovation from start to finish.

As always, the real value will be how we use these tools to boost creativity and collaboration. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all plays out in practice.

Whether you’re excited about the AI features or curious to see how these widgets will reshape your sessions, there’s plenty to explore.

Here’s to new ways of working and making the most of what Miro offers!

​

​

​

​

Until next time!

Hannah Baker ​Facilitator & Co-Founder ​The Fountain Institute ​

​