Giant, Cannondale, Trek, Specialized, etc are going to be your true value competitors. THe problem with Canyon is that whatever you want is never in stock.
So he wants a bang for the buck gravel bike that can do proper road rides? 2x effectively gives you an extra gear lower and a gear higher than 1x. The 1x gears are good for 30mph pedaling.
If you limit how rowdy you want to get to gravel roads, the Domane SL5 is at the same price point, has slightly taller gearing, takes 38c gravel tires. That’s about the only mass market wide tire big gear road bike on the market right now. The Cervelo Aspero https://www.cervelo.com/en/aspero might work. The new 2022 Checkpoint might be worth a look, but it’s a Spring 2022 delivery.
The canyon has Checkpoint tire clearance, nicer stock tires, and a MUCH better seatpost suspension solution if he’s a middle weight guy. This might be a good place to skip the CF frame and get the AL Grail, saving $1000 and not really loosing anything - the AL is just as good as the CF.