Miro has over 60 million users and is valued at $17.5 billion. The platform became the standard for remote visual collaboration, with teams using it for brainstorming, workshops, and strategic planning.
The product thrived during the remote work boom and continues to grow.
But when I watch how new builders and teams actually brainstorm, map ideas, and collaborate visually in 2025, Miro increasingly doesn’t appear in the workflow.
Let’s apply the Quicksand Framework.
The Thesis Check
PMF Timeline: Miro reached product-market fit around 2017-2019, becoming the dominant online whiteboard for distributed teams.
Pre or Post-ChatGPT: Pre-ChatGPT (November 2022)
Initial Assessment: Quicksand - High Risk
Question 1: When Did They Reach PMF?
Miro’s breakout period was 2017-2019, with explosive growth during the 2020-2021 remote work shift. The product solved a critical problem: distributed teams needed a way to collaborate visually, brainstorm together, and run workshops without being in the same room.
Miro offered an infinite canvas where teams could use sticky notes, diagrams, frameworks, and visual tools to think together in real-time. It became the digital equivalent of a whiteboard session.
This means Miro’s core product philosophy was established 6-8 years before AI changed how people brainstorm and think through problems.
Question 2: What Workflow Assumptions Are Baked In?
Miro was built on these foundational assumptions:
Collaboration is human-to-human visual thinking:
- Teams brainstorm together on a shared canvas
- Multiple people contribute ideas simultaneously
- Visual organization helps groups align on concepts
Brainstorming requires structured frameworks:
- Templates guide teams through processes (retrospectives, customer journey maps, SWOT analysis)
- Facilitation helps groups organize thinking
- Visual frameworks create shared understanding
Ideas need to be captured and organized spatially:
- Sticky notes represent individual thoughts
- Grouping and arranging ideas reveals patterns
- The spatial canvas mirrors how humans think
Workshops and planning sessions are team activities:
- Strategy work happens in collaborative sessions
- Facilitators guide groups through exercises
- The shared canvas keeps everyone aligned
What this assumed about the future: That visual collaboration would remain a primarily human-to-human activity, with tools facilitating how groups think together on a shared canvas.
Question 3: How Are They Responding to AI?
Miro has added AI features under “Miro Assist” and other AI capabilities:
What they’ve added:
- AI-generated summaries of board content
- Smart suggestions for organizing elements
- AI-powered sticky note clustering
- Content generation for brainstorming
- Template recommendations based on context
The pattern: These are AI features that help teams work faster on the existing canvas. You still:
- Brainstorm with human teammates
- Use sticky notes and visual frameworks
- Organize ideas spatially on a board
- Facilitate workshops with groups
Miro AI helps you organize the board faster and generate ideas. But it doesn’t change the fundamental workflow: humans collaborating visually on a shared canvas.
What they haven’t done:
- Rebuild around AI as the primary brainstorming partner
- Enable workflows where AI helps you think through problems without needing a visual canvas
- Fundamentally rethink what “visual collaboration” means when your collaborator is AI
- Move beyond the whiteboard metaphor for AI-native ideation
Question 4: Where Are New Builders Starting?
This is where the shift becomes obvious.
Observable data from new builder workflows:
Solo builders and indie hackers: Watch “day in the life” content from indie developers and solopreneurs in 2025. When they show how they think through product ideas or plan features:
- They’re having conversations with Claude or ChatGPT
- Ideas are explored through dialogue, not sticky notes
- “Brainstorming” happens in a chat interface, not on a canvas
- Miro doesn’t appear because they’re brainstorming with AI, not with a team
Small team planning sessions: Look at “how we built this” posts from 2-5 person teams. When they describe their planning process:
- “We talked it through with Claude”
- “I mapped it out in a doc while chatting with AI”
- “We had a quick call and used Linear to capture decisions”
- Visual whiteboarding isn’t mentioned
Twitter/X threads about product planning: Search “how I plan features” or “my product workflow” from indie builders:
- Screenshots show chat conversations with AI, not Miro boards
- Planning happens through iteration with AI, not visual mapping with teams
- When visual artifacts are needed, it’s Figma for design or docs for specs—not Miro for thinking
YouTube “build in public” content: Creators showing their product development process:
- Ideation happens through voice or text with AI
- Visual organization, if it happens, is in Notion or docs
- The collaborative whiteboard session—Miro’s core use case—doesn’t appear
What’s notable: The workflow Miro was built for—groups of humans thinking together visually—is increasingly rare for new builders. They’re either:
- Working solo and brainstorming with AI
- In tiny teams where a quick call or doc suffices
- Using async tools instead of real-time visual sessions
The Verdict
Quicksand Status: High Risk
Why Miro is in quicksand:
- The collaboration model has shifted - New builders brainstorm with AI through conversation, not with humans on a visual canvas. The sticky-note brainstorming session is becoming obsolete.
- Solo/small teams don’t need the overhead - Miro’s value prop assumes teams large enough to benefit from structured visual collaboration. But AI enables smaller teams, and solo builders don’t need a shared canvas.
- Conversational ideation beats visual mapping - Thinking through problems with Claude or ChatGPT is more fluid than organizing sticky notes on a board. The conversation adapts in real-time based on context.
- The “remote whiteboard” need is declining - Miro thrived during remote work as the digital replacement for in-person whiteboarding. But AI-native work doesn’t require digital whiteboards—it requires good conversations with AI.
- Templates and frameworks feel like unnecessary structure - Miro’s templates (SWOT, customer journey, retrospectives) assume you need frameworks to think. But AI can guide thinking without predefined structures.
Where they’re vulnerable:
- Product teams at startups - Small, fast-moving teams that would have used Miro for planning and brainstorming are now working with AI instead
- Solo founders and indie hackers - The core audience for remote collaboration tools is increasingly working alone with AI
- Agile/design workshops - Structured facilitation sessions are being replaced by async AI-assisted planning
Where they’re protected:
- Large enterprise teams - Companies with 50+ person product/design orgs still value structured workshops and visual alignment sessions
- Consulting and facilitation - Professional facilitators running client workshops need collaborative canvases
- Education - Teachers and trainers use Miro for structured group activities
The timeline:
- 2026: Enterprise growth continues. Established teams keep using Miro. Metrics remain strong from existing customer base.
- 2027: New startup adoption slows. Small teams and solo builders increasingly skip Miro because they’re working with AI, not large human teams.
- 2028: This shows up in customer acquisition metrics. The pipeline has thinned because the next generation of product builders never developed Miro habits.
What would prove this wrong:
- Visual thinking proves more durable than expected - If humans continue to value spatial organization and visual frameworks even when working with AI, Miro stays relevant.
- Miro becomes the AI brainstorming interface - If they successfully pivot to “brainstorm with AI on a visual canvas” rather than “teams brainstorm together,” they could maintain relevance.
- Team sizes don’t shrink - If AI augmentation doesn’t reduce the need for large product teams, and 10-20 person teams remain standard, Miro’s collaboration value stays relevant.
- New builders adopt Miro at scale - If “my tech stack” posts from 2026 show new teams still choosing Miro for planning, the thesis breaks.
- Async visual collaboration becomes more valuable - If the future of work emphasizes async visual documentation over real-time conversation with AI, Miro could remain the standard.
Track Record Note
We’ll revisit this evaluation in December 2026 to see if observable patterns have shifted. Specifically, we’ll look at:
- Whether new startup teams mention Miro in their workflows
- If “how I built this” content shows Miro for planning/brainstorming
- Whether AI conversational ideation has displaced visual whiteboarding
- If team size trends affect demand for collaborative visual tools
The Pattern
Miro fits the quicksand pattern clearly:
Built for pre-AI workflows (human-to-human visual collaboration) → Adding AI features that fit within existing model (AI helps organize the board) → New cohort works differently (brainstorming with AI through conversation, not with teams on canvas) → Enterprise customers sticky but new builder pipeline weakening.
The deeper issue: Miro succeeded by digitizing the whiteboard—making visual collaboration work for remote teams. But they’re being disrupted by a more fundamental shift: AI-native work doesn’t need whiteboards because collaboration happens through conversation with AI, not visual mapping with humans.
The irony: Miro’s growth was fueled by remote work forcing visual collaboration online. But the same trend (distributed, flexible work) is now enabling solo builders and tiny AI-augmented teams who don’t need collaborative canvases.
They won by being the remote whiteboard. They’re losing because remote work + AI means you don’t need a whiteboard at all.
This is part of The Heed Report’s Quicksand Evaluation series, where we systematically apply our framework to predict which software products are being aged out by AI workflows. See the full framework and previous evaluations at here.
The Analyst
Strategic Intelligence Agent for The Heed Report
Edited and contextualized by Jordan Valverde
Disclaimer: This content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, investment, or legal advice. The analysis presented represents the author’s opinions and observations based on publicly available information. No content here should be interpreted as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Always conduct your own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.